Abernathy Art Center 254 Johnson Ferry Road Sandy Springs
Sandy Springs residents offered very different opinions on how the metropolis should use the Abernathy Arts Eye property that was recently donated by Fulton County.
Local residents on Oct. five told Sandy Springs City Council how they thought the property at 254 Johnson Ferry Road should exist used. Opinions ranged from continuing to hold art classes at the site, to using it as the location for the Georgia Committee on the Holocaust'due south museum, or both.
The state Committee on the Holocaust has been searching for a habitation for the "Anne Frank in the Earth" showroom, which has been closed since losing its infinite at the Parkside Shops shopping center. The promise is to expand the Anne Frank exhibit at a new location and add other exhibits for a museum.
Sandy Springs accustomed Fulton Canton'south donation of the Abernathy Arts Center on Sept. 21. Now Sandy Springs officials are looking at future uses for the site, as well equally whether to renovate or annihilate existing buildings on the four-acre property. A public annotate session is planned for the Oct. 19 city council meeting.
Mayor Rusty Paul said the city tin can have a robust arts plan and the museum.
"I don't get to vote on these issues, but I will hope you lot that nosotros volition put together a program that incorporates the visual arts into a larger scale and scope than what we take today," he said.
The arts center site includes an annex edifice and 3 older buildings synthetic betwixt 1940 and 1945, Deputy City Manager Dave Wells said.
Wells told Urban center Quango that the addendum building constructed in 2001 does not need whatever major repairs or renovations. Simply the three older buildings would need an estimated $1.v million in renovations to come across today's standards, including a new roof and asbestos and pb remediation.
Or, the city could demolish those buildings at a cost of $300,000.
Other repairs are necessary on the site, including detention pond and retaining wall repairs.
"We have trees actually growing into the detention pond. Looks like there's a retaining wall that'south declining on information technology too, which is causing the sidewalks on the dorsum end of the property to be failing," Wells said.
Parents desire to keep fine art education
Kyle Kurtz, a mother of two, said the city needs to brand arts a priority as Fulton County drops its programs.
"I would be on a committee to heighten coin to refurbish this and make it grander. Make it as beautiful equally the Performing Arts Center," she said.
Taking away the arts centre would be wrong, Kurtz said. If space is needed for a museum, find another property, she said.
Valerie Jimenez said the arts center helps her girl who is in center school with her stuttering. It bridges the gap equally the Fulton County Schoolhouse Organization offers only 1 semester of art in middle school.
"The fine art program cannot be put off or eliminated or sacrificed to a new museum worthy as that project is," said Joyce Vroon, a former fine art educator.
Jane Kelly said the City Council may not understand how many arts classes have been held at the Abernathy Arts eye pre-COVID.
"In closing Abernathy, we will have no visual arts teaching, no art classes in the seventh-largest urban center in Georgia. Arts educational activity in Sandy Springs needs to be expanded, not disbanded. Art classes cannot exist held at City Springs," she said.
Residents of the Mountaire Springs neighborhood don't desire a commercial use like a museum adding to already bad traffic in the area, said Ronda Smith, president of the neighborhood association. They appreciate the demand for a museum, along with the services the arts eye has provided for decades.
"There are soon more questions than answers. The overarching and nearly paramount question as this location is considered for whatever future use is, is this the right place for it? The circumstances created by any commercial apply are going to be unacceptable to our neighborhood," Smith said.
Museum supporters back art education besides
Rabbi Joshua Heller, who also serves on the city's Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, said it was unfortunate that 2 different conversations were going on and being mixed. He said he believes that supporters of the Anne Frank exhibit don't desire the arts centre to become abroad.
"I retrieve whatsoever discussion of the Anne Frank exhibit needs to be secondary to the metropolis's decision about how it needs to handle the needs of the community for the arts," Heller said.
He said the story of Anne Frank tells non simply her story but that of the eleven million people who died in the Holocaust. It'south not just a Jewish message, it's a human being message, Heller said.
"A promise was fabricated to the state, to a nonprofit, and a community, and we'd similar to encounter that promise fulfilled without taking away what someone else has besides been promised," Heller said.
The Georgia Commission on the Holocaust'due south museum project will ascertain the community, and show others who we are and who nosotros desire to be, said Sally Levine, executive managing director of the commission.
Gary Alexander, a member of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, who helped raise millions of dollars for its future museum and exhibits, said the organization was approached by the metropolis near the Abernathy Arts Center property equally a possible location.
"A partnership with the City of Sandy Springs and its citizens will exist committed to preserving the memory and stories of the victims of the Holocaust survivors. Our audience will be prompted to reverberate upon choices made by individuals, organizations and governments, which allow the Holocaust to occur," he said.
Chuck Berk described what he chosen world-class exhibits planned for the museum, including one that would permit visitors to interact with Holocaust survivors using recorded interviews driven by bogus intelligence to create the interaction.
"The City Council originally asked us to become right onto the city green, and now they feel that that'south not the correct place for us. But this Abernathy site could create a beautiful campus for learning in a park-like setting," he said.
Source: https://reporternewspapers.net/2021/10/07/sandy-springs-residents-divided-on-future-use-of-abernathy-arts-center/
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