Photo / Courtesy Maine Redevelopment Land Bank Authority
Tuck O’Brien
Updated: 0 sec ago
An Aroostook County town's plan for cultural center wins key grant
Photo / Courtesy Town of Van Buren
Van Buren is turning an early-1900s downtown building into an arts and culture hub. Signage hasn’t been removed yet for a gift shop the building once housed.
Van Buren — an Aroostook County town on the border with Canada — is in the midst of turning an early-1900s downtown building into an arts and culture hub.
The Acadian Arts Center, to be located in the rehabilitated Farrell-Hammond-Keegan Building at 68 Main St., "will serve as a vibrant hub of artistic expression, education and community engagement,” Luke Dyer, Van Buren’s town manager, wrote in a narrative about the project.
“Originally constructed in 1904, this historic building will be revitalized to honor its past while providing a modern space for creativity and learning," he added.
Van Buren, with a population of 1,614, is on the St. John's River, on the border with New Brunswick, Canada.
Land bank award
The project received a recent boost when the Maine Redevelopment Land Bank Authority awarded $25,000 from its “Lightning Stabilization” grant program.
The money was used to winterize and replace the roof in the Farrell-Hammond-Keegan Building and on measures to make the building secure in the near term while planning the project's next steps.
Upcoming work will include interior renovations to accommodate an artist residency program, an accessible public gallery and an arts education space, according to a news release.
“This is an exciting milestone in our ongoing effort to put vacant properties back to work,” said Tuck O’Brien, the land bank’s executive director.
Maine’s first statewide land bank was established in 2022 as a dedicated independent entity to assist redevelopment activities across the state, with a goal is to help communities bring abandoned, environmentally compromised or functionally obsolete properties into productive use by using federal and technical resources.
The land bank authority was created as a corporate entity separate from the state government, with its own decision-making process and tools needed to acquire and sell real estate, acquire grant funds and issue bonds for site cleanup.
The town of Van Buren was the land bank’s first grant awardee.
“Van Buren was a pilot and we are in the process of building a program based on our findings,” O’Brien said of the land bank’s overall efforts. “We are hoping to provide eight additional grants starting in Q2 of this year.”
Exhibits, workshops
In Van Buren, the idea behind the Acadian Arts Center is to renovate the upper floor so it can house an arts residency program that offers artists a live-in studio environment while engaging with the local community, Dyer wrote.
Photo / Courtesy Town of Van Buren
Luke Dyer
“Importantly, the resident artist will play a vital role in the community by offering workshops, classes and interactive discussions that provide hands-on education in various art forms,” he said.
The main floor’s gallery would showcase rotating exhibits that highlight artistic styles and disciplines, from contemporary art to the region’s Acadian and French Canadian heritage. There would be guided tours, artist talks and exhibition openings.
The arts education space, adjacent to the gallery, would offer hands-on learning experiences, with classes and workshops covering a variety of mediums, tailored to meet the interests of the community.
The center’s design would prioritize accessibility, with adaptive workstations and inclusive programming. Programming would be shaped by community input.
The land bank grant was enough to carry out some quick fixes to make sure the building didn’t further decline, he said.
Interior gut job
Work was recently underway to gut the interior, Dyer told Mainebiz.
The project is part of an overall push to revitalize the downtown, he said.
In recent years, the town received a $10,000 grant from a nonprofit called Community Heart & Soul to identify what matters most to residents, what future they want for the community and how to achieve it.
“We want the community to participate in these projects,” said Dyer.
One of the concerns that emerged was that the municipality had no central gathering space.
“This looked like a good opportunity to create space for people to gather and learn and experience the arts,” he said.
‘Cartwheels on Main Street’
Farrell-Hammond-Keegan Building provided that opportunity. Each of the building’s two stories is 1,170 square feet.
The name Acadian Arts Center is still a work in progress, said Dyer.
The community has been consulting via videoconference with students, in disciplines such as design and policy, at Clemson University in South Carolina and Drexel University in Philadelphia.
It’s estimated the complete redevelopment could cost about $300,000, said Dyer. An architect and general contractor have not been selected.
Local contractors and suppliers will be used. The town is looking to grant programs to provide financing.
“I’d be doing cartwheels on Main Street if we could do the grand opening on July 4, 2026,” he said.
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