TAMAQUA, PA – Businesses and creative firms in search of spectacular, affordable light-filled space can find 250,000 square feet of it just 100 miles west of New York, NY, where a dream list of available properties includes turn-of-the-century architecture, heavenly ceilings, and large light-filled windows, all at bargain prices.
“Our vision is to become a new manufacturing community, where creative firms and established artists and can find spacious, beautiful spaces at a fraction of the cost elsewhere,” says Micah J. Gursky, executive director of Tamaqua Area Community Partnership (TACP). In January 2015, the borough of Tamaqua was awarded a City Revitalization and Improvement Zone (CRIZ) designation.
The town of Tamaqua, with a population of 7,000, is accessible to major cultural centers, highways, and air travel, and even boasts a bus stop for a line with service to and from New York City that’s walkable along safe, clean and well-lit streets. Tamaqua is also noted for its strong community-based programs and history of reputable restaurants, schools and hospitals.
Internationally noted contemporary artist Joseph Marioni purchased his now glorious live/work space a decade ago on Broad Street in Tamaqua. Serendipitously, McCoy Designs, a high-end home décor manufacturer that wholesales to Barney’s and Neiman Marcus, is located nearby.
“At first, I wasn’t convinced of the location,” recalls the artist whose large monotone works are in the collections worldwide. Marioni maintains his studio in Manhattan and spends half of the year at his behemoth live/work studio in the center of Tamaqua. The Tamaqua studio is a former Odd Fellow’s Club and features 15,000 square feet of light-filled space with 15-foot-high tin ceilings and sweeping north-facing windows.
“Unlike areas such as Paducah, KY, or Detroit, MI, Tamaqua is close to New York, Philadelphia, and other decentralized yet very important cultural hubs,” says Marioni. “If I have an appointment in New York, I can be there in two to three hours,” adds the contemporary artist, whose paintings will be featured in a 12-piece installation at The Philadelphia Museum of Art in November 2015.
Tamaqua once served as the jewel shopping district for the surrounding coal region, and currently on the town’s real estate market, notes Gursky, is a grand former department store built in 1916. Located at 24–26 West Broad Street, the 20,000-square-foot property with intoxicating northern light features four floors of loft-like space and beckons with a range of possibilities. When a visitor learned the building includes seven working garages, the wheels began whirling. “First-floor retail, a hotel with bar and restaurant, and upper floors of glorious artist or manufacturing space,” suggests Gursky as the visitors ponder the possibilities.
In 2008, Marioni recruited former Brooklyn-based portrait artist Stephen Bennett to consider the small Pennsylvania borough. Bennett fell for the town, as well, and purchased a large white-brick church. “All for a fraction of the price of the real estate legal fees I paid a year prior in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn,” recalls Bennett.
Recently, Marioni, Bennett, and Gursky have formed the Tamaqua Artist Relocation Program (TARP) and are planning a series of open houses in the fall. Their mission is to introduce manufacturers, mid-career artists, and “creative farmers” to the vital, affordable community of Tamaqua.
The community of Tamaqua also funds a Tamaqua Artist-in-Residence (TAIR) Program, offering an artist a place to live and work for a year.
TARP is collaboration between Tamaqua’s professional artists and community development leaders. Its mission is to connect artists with a viable live/work space close to major markets, and within the safe, vibrant community of Tamaqua. The goal is to bring community development funding to artists and developers for the acquisition and redevelopment of live/work space.
TARP is a partnership between the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership (TACP) and Blue Print Communities, Rural LISC, and Tamaqua Community Arts Center.
For more information about the Tamaqua Artist’s Relocation Program, contact Micah Gursky by phone at 570-449-8996 or email at Micah@tacp.info. For more information about the former Scheid’s Department Store, contact BobAgentis@gmail.com.
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