The Freeman Arts/Earth Center
From 2014-2018, I had the opportunity to return to my home community and collaborate with the late visionary Dr. John Koch developing a creative placemaking project catalyzing heritage, food, and the arts as a vehicle for community and economic development. The project was firmly rooted in Asset Building Community Development principles, exploring how community strengths in the arts and creativity could be synergized with its regions strong agricultural tradition.
Read the July 25th, 2014 Argus Leader Article on the project here.
The Defining Features of the Project Were:
A locally owned and operated project.
Provides a setting for education and training around sustainability, rural revitalization and innovative farming practices.
Creates an economically self-sustaining and resilient system.
Based around the Amana Colonies model of utilizing heritage/culture as a vehicle for economic growth.
Strives to provide opportunities to those who wish to work in agriculture and/or engage creatively.
Focuses both on the recruitment of human capital and talent, as well as retaining or recapturing creative talent already lost.
In a nutshell, this project strove to answer the question: How can our communities, through the harnessing of strengths and unique qualities already present, generate sustainable economic growth while cultivating a vibrant and healthy way of life.
What are the Amana Colonies?
What is the University of Arkansas Community Design Center?
What and Where is Freeman and Why is it Important?
Freeman, South Dakota, is strategically located in the middle of a geographic triangle between the small cities of Mitchell, Yankton, and Sioux Falls (each approximately a 45-minute drive). A rapidly growing region, the city of Sioux Falls alone (metropolitan population approx. 230,000) anticipates a growth of over 40,000 residents by the year 2030.
Freeman is an unusual place. It boasts the arts and cultural activity of a much larger town, a vestige of the progressive and cultural base remaining from Freeman Junior College, a school that closed in 1985. This activity is highlighted by Schmeckfest and the South Dakota Chislic Festival each year. At its base, the project was a response to there being no facility for any of this activity. Typical of many small towns in rural America, the town boasts 5 gymnasium facilities but no place to hold one of its core events in Schmeckfest.
Located on US Highway 81, Freeman is an arts and cultural destination and a natural pass-through point for many tourists visiting historic Yankton (Dakota’s Territorial capitol and home to Gavins Point Dam), Mitchell's iconic Corn Palace, or in transit from the south to I-90 which then leads west to the Black Hills/Mount Rushmore or east to Sioux Falls.
Curious what's happening in the city of Freeman right now? Click here!
How is heritage and history preserved in Freeman? Head over to Freeman's Heritage Hall Museum for an insider's look at one of the community's cornerstone organizations.
The Plan
In 2014, Dr. John Koch and I collaborated to develop and secure a $150,000 NEA Our Town grant, (matched with local funds) from the National Endowment for the Arts for the project.
The project was conceived in collaboration with Boston & Western, the University of Arkansas’ Community Design Center and Center of Agricultural and Rural Sustainability. The plan featured an agricultural greenhouse that would produce enough revenue to finance and then maintain the larger Arts/Earth Center. Leading consultants in the aquaponics and hydroponics field were included in the process, and the financial modelling process began.
What Happened Next
The project encountered challenges in developing the agricultural vision for the project. As the troubles began to surmount, the project morphed into a community master plan to coordinate connections among existing cultural facilities, proposed commercial agricultural facilities, and allied land uses related to possible new housing and improved public landscapes in which the Arts/Earth Center will serve as an anchor; and the design of a 16,000-20,000 square foot Arts/Earth Center housing a 400-seat theatre and 120-seat recital hall.
The project was coordinated by Freeman Education & Research (FEAR), a local not-for-profit organization we established in Freeman. Over the next several months Dr. Koch and I, along with the coordinating partners, held design charettes that included over 35 community members divided into 6 taskforces. We led and coordinated dozens of meetings for these taskforces - including a wide series of public meetings held to encourage input from the general public.
The designs for the Freeman Arts/Earth Center and the community master plan exist to this day and await continued development. In the interim, Dr. John Koch passed away, taking away one of the guiding lights of its development. While its goals have not yet been fulfilled, we honor his memory by pursuing the core tenants of the development goals of the project in other fashions to this day. His ideals exemplified a caring, asset-building approach to economic development and present possibilities for Freeman to this day.
