On the heels of another recent multimillion-dollar community revitalization effort through his non-profit Rebuild Foundation, 2022 Serpentine Pavilion designer Theaster Gates was back in the South Side last week to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new St. Laurence Arts Incubator in Chicago.

Joined by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Gates spoke about the new $10.35 million project, which will transform a disused elementary school — shuttered since 2002 — into a “think tank and makerspace” for local artists with 40,000 square feet of studios, co-working, research, educational, and entrepreneurial spaces. The new initiative joins Gates’ Prada-backed Dorchester Industries Experimental Design Lab, also located on the South Side, that was announced last summer.

“The St. Laurence renovation is a work of art in and of itself," local philanthropist Alec Litowitz said in a statement prior to the May 3rd groundbreaking ceremony. "Resurrecting this abandoned school building and transforming it into a communal space to nurture artistry and business enterprise is the ultimate creative act.”

Gates' team is still in the process of finalizing an architect for the project so that programming can commence sometime in the fall of next year. It stated that the mission of the adaptive reuse project is to “bring creative resources, amenities and programs to communities that have historically lacked proximate access to them.” The project is being funded in part by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Illinois Department of Economic Opportunity, in addition to Gates' own 13-year-old foundation.

Related on Archinect: A Conversation with Theaster Gates; Archinect Sessions Episode #136

“As an emerging artist navigating the creative industries and my own curiosity about process and making, access to resources, space and programs in my own neighborhood would have been vital to developing and refining my practice,” the artist and urban planner said of his broader vision and motivation. “St. Laurence is as much about preserving Black space as it is about giving new life to creative possibilities on the South Side.”