Center for Innovation and the Arts
The Center for Innovation and the Arts is imagined to be a dynamic and inclusive center focused on leveraging resources of multiple partners including the City of Brooklyn Park, North Hennepin Community College, Osseo Area School District, and Hennepin County.
Check out our Celebrate Brooklyn Park events at Plaza Park!
New and upcoming
2022 Arts Festival
Saturday, June 25, 1-4 p.m.
We’re excited to announce that the city of Brooklyn Park is hosting its second annual Arts Festival on Saturday, June 25 from 1-4pm!
The event will be at Plaza Park, located at the intersection of West Broadway and 85th Avenue N near the Hennepin County Library in Brooklyn Park, and will feature local artists selling their artwork, arts activities, performances, and food trucks.
Participation is free for all artists, vendors and performers, but you will have to complete an application and bring your own table, chairs, tent, or anything else you need for your display.
If you are interested in applying to perform, having a table, or selling your artwork at the event, please complete the interest form below by Friday, June 10.
If you have any questions, please contact Sarah Abe at 612-749-0904 or sarah.abe@brooklynpark.org.
This event will follow current and up to date COVID-19 guidance from the State of Minnesota. Artists will be notified of guidelines before the event.
Media kit
We now have a kit graphics, photos and suggestions for social media posts so you can help promote the Center for Innovation and the Arts project!
Letter-writing campaign
A great way to help right now is to write a letter or email to the Capital Investment Committee in the Minnesota House and Senate. With their support, we hope to secure bonding resources for this incredible project.
Below are the chairmen of the committee for the Minnesota House (full list) and Senate (full list). You can select any member(s) of the committee to write to, including the Chairs.
Representative Fue Lee
Capital Investment Committee Chair – House
485 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St Paul, MN 55155
651-296-4262
rep.fue.lee@house.mn
Senator Thomas M. Bakk
Capital Investment Committee Chair – Senate
328 Capitol, Room 328
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
651-296-8881
sen.tom.bakk@senate.mn
Email template
Your time is valuable to us, so we created email templates to help you in writing to your representatives.
House email template (PDF) >
Senate email template (PDF) >
Vision
The Center for Innovation and the Arts is imagined to be a dynamic and inclusive center focused on leveraging resources of multiple partners to create a flexible facility that will greatly increase educational opportunities for students, increase economic prosperity, and advance the quality of life in Brooklyn Park and surrounding communities. The center will enhance and accelerate secondary to post-secondary academic programs and pathways in the arts and STEAM areas, increase baccalaureate completion, and provide equitable and inclusive access to arts, technology and cross-cultural programming to a richly diverse population.
The Center will engage the broader and highly diverse community through a focus on equitable and inclusive access to arts and cross-cultural programming. The Center will provide access and opportunity to the youth and citizens of the northwest suburban region in promoting engagement in education and attraction to support and increase economic development and advance quality of life.
This project matches one of the most diverse community colleges in the Minnesota State system with the most diverse state university to serve a community where over 50% of the residents represent people of color, new Americans and immigrant communities.
The Center for Innovation and the Arts will solve a number of needs for its partners.
- This project will replace the existing NHCC Fine Arts Center (FAC), a dated facility that no longer meets the educational needs of the NHCC arts programs and prohibits the programs from desired national accreditation. Creating this facility will provide our students with a quality learner centered state-of-the-art educational experience and modern resources to make them competitive in their chosen fields
- The vision for the center includes engaging the broader community and surrounding cities in utilizing the facility to advance cultural engagement, community education and youth programming through art classes, camps, after-school and summer activities. The city of Brooklyn Park and surrounding cities will greatly benefit as the facility will fill an identified “arts gap” within the community and the northwest suburban region.
- In a future phase, there are plans for an adjoining STEAM magnet school, with the goal to expand opportunities for science, technology, engineering, arts and math pathways. This partnership leverages adjacent library and shared physical resources at NHCC, increasing the “pipeline” of secondary to post-secondary students to NHCC.
- The center location at the corner of 85th and West Broadway supports the interests of Hennepin County in providing state-of-the-art amenities that will advance economic development and position the NW metropolitan region for ongoing growth and development. Specifically, the anticipation of the Blue Line Light Rail stopping at this very location positions the center to be a premier cultural and educational destination.
Timeline
- Pre-planning (2015-2020)
- Fundraising (2021-2024)
- Design (2022-2023)
- Construction (2023-2025)
Member Advisory Board
| Tim Gadson | Anoka-Hennepin School District – Associate Superintendent |
| Geno Okok | Arts Leader – Local |
| Jane Wilson | Arts Leader – Local |
| Gulgun Kayim | Arts Leader – Regional, City of Minneapolis |
| Barbara McDonald | At Large – St. Scholastica – President |
| Rebecca Gilgen | Brooklyn Bridge Alliance for Youth – Executive Director |
| Mike Elliott | City of Brooklyn Center – Mayor |
| Jay Stroebel | City of Brooklyn Park – City Manager |
| Susan Pha | City of Brooklyn Park – Council |
| Wynfred Russell | City of Brooklyn Park – Council |
| Lisa Jacobson | City of Brooklyn Park – Mayor |
| Tashawna Williams | City of Brooklyn Park – Rec and Park |
| Kristy Barnett | City of Maple Grove – Council |
| Amiee Peterson | City of Maple Grove – Superintendent of Rec |
| Addie Finch Tessman | Community Member |
| Bill Schreiber | Community Member |
| Basil Ajuo | Community Member – Minnesota Africans United |
| Jeffrey Lunde | Hennepin County – Commissioner |
| Rolando Garcia | NHCC – President |
| Dale Fagre | NHCC Foundation – Executive Director |
| Nancy Moore | Northwest Tourism – President/CEO |
| Tanya Simons | Osseo Area Schools – Board |
| John Morstad | Osseo Area Schools – ED of Finance and Operations |
| Mike Nelson | State Representative – 40A |
| John Hoffman | State Senator – 36 |
| John Paul Yates | TwinWest Chamber of Commerce – Director of Public Affairs |
Get updates
For more information, visit North Hennepin Community College’s website.
You can also sign up for email updates related to the Center for Innovation and the Arts below:
Media kit
We now have a kit graphics, photos and suggestions for social media posts so you can help promote the Center for Innovation and the Arts project!
Gallery
