Sohn: New arts building is fitting new tradition

Townsend Atelier now has classes in the new ArtsBuild building.
Townsend Atelier now has classes in the new ArtsBuild building.

The new office of ArtsBuild, the private nonprofit arts advocate in Chattanooga, is truly a home befitting one of Chattanooga's most important cultural organizations.

The 100-year-old Dover Building at the corner of King and East 11th streets has a new look and a new life - a very artsy look and life that will serve the 14 local arts organizations that ArtsBuild supports, promoting awareness of art, literature and performance programs and goals here.

Wehco Media, which owns Chattanooga Publishing Co. and the Chattanooga Times Free Press, along with Wehco Chairman and CEO Walter E. Hussman Jr., gave the 15,000-square-foot, three-story building to ArtsBuild. A $1.2 million renovation transformed the vintage building from warehouse dowdy to urban fabulous.

It is the perfect continuance of Chattanooga newspaper traditions in supporting the arts, and each floor of the new Arts building has been aptly named to show it. The Holmberg Floor honors The Chattanooga Times, the Hussman Floor honors the current paper, the Times Free Press, and the McDonald Floor honors the Chattanooga Free Press.

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