Longtime Enjoy the Arts/START exec director Lisa Mullins departed the Main Street arts non-profit on March 28.
Enjoy the Arts has a mission of introducing students and young adults to the arts through discounted tickets and special offers; it is also the umbrella of what has become the annual 20 Days/20 Nights Festival in September.
Mullins has been with Enjoy the Arts since the late Eighties and has been exec director since 1991. Board president Lori Wellinghoff says Mullins’ departure was “mutually agreed upon.” There are no immediate plans to replace her, says Wellinghoff, as the board “diligently considers massively exciting new ventures.” Board members will provide “day to day leadership” as they consider the organization’s “functionality and new deliverables” and what that means for staffing.
The ventures mentioned above include planning for a potential move to “The Beacon,” a planned arts building at Race and Liberty which would house, on three floors, Enjoy the Arts, ArtWorks, Learning Through Art and the Fine Arts Fund, moving down from Hyde Park Square to give the building a known presence.
3CDC (Cincinnati Center City Devt. Corp.), which has been investing in the idea of arts & culture as a neighborhood anchor, is doing the fundraising, says Wellinghoff, who is chairing the project.
Wellinghoff would like to see a move-in in 2009; the scuttlebutt is that historic tax credits from the state are a key part of the financing and that ever-organized Cleveland may have gobbled up the stash.
Jackie Demaline
