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Golden is spending big bucks to build up its art and theater scenes

As Colorado’s oldest standing hotel, the Astor House in Golden has racked up 157 years of stories, including a tale of exploding windows from a Colorado School of Mines detonation across the street — the dynamite was intentional, the broken glass was not — and a man plunging from a second-story doorway onto the ground below.

“I’ve heard that when it was a boarding house, they removed the balcony because too many people were spitting tobacco on passersby,” said Hassan Najjar, executive director of Golden’s Foothills Art Center, which reopened Astor House to the public on May 25 after a $4.1 million renovation. “Someone got up in the middle of the night and didn’t know it was gone, walked right out of it, and broke their legs.”

But Golden, also known as the home of Coors Brewing Co. and a winding, sparkling creek that draws cyclists, hikers and tubers, isn’t just an Old West town. After years of intense, post-pandemic planning, arts nonprofit leaders and city officials are working to add “cultural destination” to the list of draws by spending millions to expand and grow its art spaces.

They see it as long overdue investment in a town that has hit capacity with its current cultural offerings, but that could also benefit from more outside attention and tourism.

The effort is also designed to give more control and elbow room to a pair of proven arts and culture organizations — the nonprofit Foothills Art Center and Miner’s Alley Playhouse — and boost the fortunes of every gallery, student, and culture hound in town. That in turn frees artists, teachers and curators to experiment and expand, tinkering with programming and fundraising while bringing in younger and more diverse audiences, boosters said.

Reducing the friction of entering the art world is a big part of the drive, Najjar said. Admission to Foothills’ galleries and basic memberships are now entirely free, thanks to the Colorado Gives Foundation. New artists can submit works to the Astor House galleries and request feedback meetings with curator Eriq Hochuli. And for the first time in its long history, Astor House now has an elevator and full ADA access to every gallery. Najjar built the front desk, as well as a landing made of reclaimed wood from a bowling alley lane.

“We have a $100,000 bench going on that concrete pad,” he said as he gestured toward an outside space that will soon host concerts and small events. “It’s not even done, and it already looks better than it’s ever looked.”

In December, Miner’s Alley launched its first shows in its new home: “A Christmas Story” and “The Story of the Nutcracker.” The 30,000-square-foot former hardware store — which just happens to share a parking lot with Astor House — itself received a $9.5 million makeover after serving as the home of Meyer Hardware for five decades.

“People congratulated us for saving (the site) from condos,” said Len Matheo, producing artistic director of Miner’s Alley Performing Arts Center, and husband of executive director Lisa DeCaro. “Everyone just wanted a say, which is always true of small towns.”

Golden’s tight-knit community of 20,000 or so offers an advantage over larger, more resourced towns, Najjar said, because there is less complexity and fewer steps to take. But they’re meaningless if neighbors aren’t walking with them.

First and foremost, Golden’s cultural leaders need to listen closely to the people in town, Matheo said, even if their plans also hinge on increasing Golden’s statewide profile and tourism. Matheo’s idea for a wintertime play-crawl is a novel concept for bringing in people during quiet months — people who could eat, drink, shop and stay nearby. But there are signs it would be supported in town regardless of outside interest.

In 2023 and 2024, the city provided grants to arts and culture groups in the amount of $150,000 to $200,000 total each year, said Joy Meadows, who promotes the city’s cultural programs. Robin Fleischmann, the city’s economic development manager, has also touted Golden’s murals, flower gardens and Victorian architecture as draws that deserve tourism money.

In the case of Miner’s Alley, a $2.5 million community revitalization from the state jumpstarted the ambitious fundraising that eventually gathered the $9.5 million it needed for its new home, with the gap being filled by donations and other grants — including another $2 million from the city of Golden.

The city is already seeing a return on its new investments, said Steve Glueck, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority and assistant to the city manager, having already backed the Arts in Public Places program and the Golden History Museum for a number of years.

“We are fortunate that so many arts organizations are thriving with strong memberships, popular shows and performances,” he wrote via email. “Our community shows up for the arts and we’re very grateful to see that.”

Ticket sales at Miner’s Alley are up 69% over the same time last year, although so are costs, given that Miner’s Alley offers free school performances, good pay for actors, and other benefits made possible by its huge new building, Matheo said. Its former home, within sight from Astor House’s infamous balcony, was roughly one-tenth of its current size and located on the second floor of its building.

Miner’s Alley was paying about $6,000 per month there, but wanted to own its home and expand. In addition to high-tech new gear and a handsome, 157-seat theater for its own productions, Miner’s Alley wants to use its multi-level space to store and rent out costumes, manufacture props and sets for other companies, and lead film and theater classes. Its wide lobby features a bar and plenty of places to sit; Matheo envisions high school students on their laptops hanging out and drinking lattes.

“When we develop the other 15,000 square feet, we’ll have 300 seats in the theater, hydraulic lifts that come out of the floor, and artists housing,” he said. For now, however, much of that 15,000 extra square feet is empty or devoted to spread-out storage on cold concrete floors. Like a boom-era tech company, an employee area offers table tennis, an arcade cabinet, foosball, darts and areas to lounge.

“My wife’s very thrifty so we got a lot of this stuff for cheap,” he said. “You can’t pay theater people a lot of money, so we try to give them as much as we can.”

That cavernous space, he added, will eventually add big windows, another bar-and-lounge area, offices and more bathrooms, among other building-wide improvements. But that’s only after Miner’s Alley raises another $7 million with its new, “Act II” fundraising campaign.

Foothills’ rejuvenation looks just as dramatic. Moving its galleries to Astor House, at 822 12th St., allowed it to open up the walls at its original building (now dubbed the Creative Campus), revealing stained glass that was covered for the last 20 years. Astor House got a new building addition alongside its renovation, adding more space and taking out walls from the existing structure.

Najjar said it’s needed to keep up with audience growth. Over his 8 years as director of Foothills Art Center, he’s more than doubled the staff and budget (which started at around $400,000 and is now at $1 million), increased memberships and donors, and overseen a hard turn toward education that finds kids streaming in and out of the Creative Campus on summer days. Foothills’ 8 summer camps are not glorified daycares, Najjar said, which is reflected in the fact that they all sold out within minutes of opening for registration earlier this year.

The successes of Foothills and Miner’s Alley have a lot in common, he said.

“We treat people like collaborators,” he said as he stood outside Foothills’ original building. Until May, Foothills’ only location was its converted, red-brick Presbyterian Church, built in 1872, at 809 15th St. That building also recently enjoyed about $1.2 million in renovations, refocusing its spaces into classrooms, a kiln room, below-market-rate artist studios, and summer camp rooms.

“We’ve been growing because we ask for input, and we don’t act like we’re in an ivory tower,” said Najjar, whose own children on this day were excitedly recounting their ceramics projects from a weeklong mini-camp. “Basically, we’re not rude to people, which is not a mysterious thing to do, but apparently hard for some other arts organizations.”

The fact that Foothills is paying a symbolic $1 per year for its 30-year lease of Astor shows its close relationship and good standing with the city, which owns the building. It was contingent on Foothills fixing its existing building and constructing the new addition to Astor House — with Foothills raising most of the money. Golden’s Downtown Development Authority and Golden Urban Renewal Authority provided a grant of $700,000, and the city provided a $500,000 “tenant allowance” for the renovation and addition, which will be paid back in future rent payments starting in about a decade.

Najjar is deeply involved in town cultural doings, sitting on two public arts boards, and launching the idea for the Artsweek Golden festival, which occurs annually in June as a free, juried event with 70 local and national artists. He makes a point to hire artists and educators with experience in bringing people into the cultural realm, he said, from retired and part-time art public school teachers to people who are well-known and liked around town.

“It feels good to support the next generation,” said Wesley Hughes, education coordinator at Foothills, as well as a local musician and event producer at Golden businesses. “I grew up here and went to all sorts of summer camps, and I want to help smooth out some of the speedbumps I’ve experienced. Art is low-risk, high-reward in the way.”

“I think we’re a little behind some of our peers in the seven-county region in terms of arts notoriety,” Najjar said. “But we have a pretty big advantage here in our geographic concentration, our walkability, and the fact that people in town are finally seeing all of these things come to fruition.”

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