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Center for Innovation and the Arts

The Center for Innovation and the Arts was 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.

Update: As of October 27, 2022, the vision for the project has shifted away from securing a physical space. See the joint letter from North Hennepin Community College President Dr. Rolando Garcia and City of Brooklyn Park City Manager Jay Stroebel: CITA Update Letter (October 27, 2022)

Check out our Celebrate Brooklyn Park events at Plaza Park!

2022 events

2022 Arts Festival

Saturday, June 25, 1-4 p.m.

The Second Annual Arts Festival on Saturday, June 25 of 2022, was a beautiful day! This festival is held annually at Plaza Park, across from the Brooklyn Park Library and next to the planned location for the Center for Innovation and the Arts. More than 675 attendees enjoyed a fun-filled day of activities, performances, food trucks, and local art vendors, including:

Twenty-nine local artists were able to display and sell their artwork.
Walker Arts and Balloons by Ka Lee provided art activities.
Gramsky’s Sandwiches and Ali Ice Cream served up delicious food options.
Afrocontigbo, Mexica Yolotl Aztec Dance, Ballet Folklorico Mexico Azteca, and Blue Lotus put on unforgettable performances!

Look for other events at Plaza Park >

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!

View Media Kit

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.

Supporting Documents

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)
Discontinued: Design (2022-2023)
Discontinued: 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