When ArtWorks leaders toured a potential new headquarters building on Gilbert Avenue in Walnut Hills, its origin story was almost too good to be true. It was constructed in 1909 to house the Bolce Paint Company, which at the time was the third-oldest paint store in the U.S. and the largest west of the Allegheny Mountains. The three-story building, plus basement, later became home to Race Refrigeration for 50 years.
ArtWorks, of course, is the creative force behind Cincinnati’s renowned public mural program that recently made us the No. 1 City for Street Art in the USA Today readers’ choice awards. Since its launch in 1996, the nonprofit has trained and paid more than 3,500 professional artists and 4,000 teenagers and young adults to paint 300-plus permanent outdoor murals.
Would a historic building that once housed a paint store make a great office and studio space for the city’s largest collection of painting artists? Would it help that ArtWorks’s well-known “5 Points Alley” mural has been on the side of the building since 2016? Yes and yes. ArtWorks purchased the building and moves in this fall.
The new facility brings the organization’s office staff, creative studios, and public gallery under one roof for the first time, with enough room for 50–70 workers on any given day. ArtWorks is also reimagining the parking lot across Gilbert into Hannan ArtPark, with green space, sculpture, and a mural by contemporary American artist Charles Gaines (rendering above).
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