Deal Struck To Save Ely Center

The Ely Center of Contemporary Art is officially buying the John Slade Ely House, the Elizabethan mansion on Trumbull Street that has served as a hub for the New Haven visual arts community since 1961. It’s purchasing the building from ACES for $800,000, fending off a bid from a developer for the same price.

“All the people that have been supportive of us are ecstatic that we’re in this position,” said Jeanne Criscola, ECOCA’s board president.

ECOCA was formed as a nonprofit in 2016 when the John Slade Ely House last went up for sale. The building was then owned by the trust of arts benefactor Grace Ely, which sold the historic property to ACES/ECA. At the time, ACES representatives said they intended to renovate the building to be used as space for ECA’s visual arts program, and would rent it to ECOCA for use as a gallery space until that time came. (Read about that sale here.)

ACES’s plans for the building were stymied by frustrated attempts to secure money from the state government to do the needed renovations. So at the beginning of this year, ACES contacted a real estate broker about selling the property — and got an offer from a developer for $800,000. ACES then turned to ECOCA, giving it right of first refusal and a chance to purchase the building itself, if it could match the developer’s offer by March 15. (Read about that here.)

With ECOCA’s public announcement in early March of its predicament, a few offers to help came in. ​“We had a couple people who were interested but the timing was such that we couldn’t get an agreement in place,” said board member Suneet Talpade. Some had contingencies and conditions involved that, upon further discussion, didn’t fit with what ECOCA wanted to do. It was all amicable; ​“everyone had our best interest at heart,” Talpade said.

By March 10, a particular offer was promising enough to move forward, from a single donor who chooses (for now) to remain anonymous. With three business days to go, a proposal was worked out. The investor put up $100,000 for a downpayment. ​“We got all the papers signed with less than 30 minutes to go,” Talpade said. Late in the afternoon on March 15, an offer for the property was in, and accepted. ECOCA and ACES are now in the usual 60-day period between ACES accepting the offer and officially closing on the property to work out the details.

But ​“we are buying the building,” Talpade said; the building will be in the hands of ECOCA as a nonprofit, with the investor acting as ECOCA’s bank. ​“He is investing in us, but he’s looking for a certain return on his investment,” Talpade said. For the first two years, the rate on the loan to ECOCA will be favorable to the nonprofit, to give it a chance to grow as an organization.

“It’s also a challenge,” Talpade said. ​“We know we have to become bigger and better as we grow. That’s part of our mission for the next few years. We want to make an impact.” With the property now securely in ECOCA’s hands, however, that mission can be more ambitious and clearly defined.

It begins with the building itself. ​“Because we own the building, we are going to be able to do some much needed repair and renovation to the interior,” said Jeanne Criscola, ECOCA’s board president. The public gallery spaces are only a fraction of the house’s immense interior space. The back of the building has several rooms, including a kitchen and bathroom. The floors above the gallery space are a catacomb of rooms that were once servant’s quarters. And the basement is an open space large enough that the first iteration of Creative Arts Workshop were run out of it. ECOCA would like to make all of this space usable, and will be raising funds from donors, grants, city, and state to address it. ​“We will be actively pursuing grant opportunities for that,” Criscola said.

“Which we would not have been able to do if we didn’t own the building,” Talpade added.

ECOCA is also looking to grow in terms of programming. ​“We have to grow our board. We have to diversify our board. And we have to find ways to bring in income,” Criscola said. ECOCA is also looking to expand its membership and create more artist residencies. More complex plans involve a program to create artist multiples — everything from t‑shirts, books, and zines to limited-edition 3‑D sculptures — providing artist studios, becoming a digital maker space ​“if not an actual maker space,” said board member Debbie Hesse, and partnering with other organizations.

“We want to be a place that people reach out to and want to partner with. That’s the whole idea of having a public space.… We want to be able to bring together people who make things, whether it’s music, performance, film, or objects,” Criscola said. ​“We are really interested in holding to Grace Taylor Ely’s will, in that she wanted a contemporary arts center. So we’re trying to look at ​‘contemporary’ as ​‘community,’ local, international and global. In order to enrich a city, it has to have connections to the outside. So while we’re very locally oriented we also want to see an influx of people and other ideas that will create a dialogue around contemporary ideas and issues.”

“We had a lot of outpouring from people after we sent out our last email, congratulating us, thanking us, pouring out their feelings about how important the building is to the people of New Haven, and how much it means to them to have it be an asset to the community,” Criscola said.

“It’s a transformation for us, too. The way we look at the future is different than it was in the past,” Talpade said. ​“In the past, we never really knew where we would be on a long term basis. Now we know we are here to stay.

“It’s finally in the right place. This is the first time we’re in a very good position — and not just us, but everyone who finds the Ely Center to be an important organization,” Criscola said. ​“It’s really exciting. We’re re-energized. Be prepared for a completely new narrative.”