LOGAN SQUARE — Leaders of a well-liked artwork hub within the coronary heart of Logan Sq. are getting ready for giant modifications and constructing upgrades subsequent 12 months.
Consolation Station, nestled within the inexperienced public area of Logan Sq. Park at 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave., is getting new management, a renovation of the historic constructing and a centennial celebration beginning in January, the nonprofit workers introduced final week.
Government Director Jordan Martins, who has led the Consolation Station because it was established as a nonprofit in 2016, plans to step down on the finish of the 12 months. Inventive Director Kitty Rauth will take over the function on an interim foundation.
Martins, a collage-based painter and trainer, didn’t suppose he’d nonetheless be a part of Consolation Station virtually 15 years after getting concerned. Earlier than he established the artwork area as a nonprofit, he confirmed his work there in 2011 at certainly one of its first official exhibits and arranged weekly Thursday concert events — that are nonetheless going sturdy.
“My apply as a trainer, operating Consolation Station — which grew from a very grassroots volunteer aspect hustle to my primary job — and along with my very own studio apply, different artistic tasks and having a household, I simply am within the technique of whittling issues all the way down to a special mixture of parts in my life,” Martins mentioned.
Through the years, the ad-hoc area has grown to foster extra artists and supply free applications, together with picture reveals, concert events, readings and movie screenings in partnership with Logan Sq. Preservation. Martins wrote a few of Consolation Station’s first grants, established cross-cultural partnerships and rethought the usage of public area with artwork installations on Consolation Station’s garden, together with the 2022 set up “SCAFFOLD” and Edra Soto’s nationally famend “La Casa de Todos” in 2024.
Martins is able to step apart and “hand over the keys” to Rauth, who was employed in 2022 as Consolation Station’s creative director and understands the nonprofit’s imaginative and prescient, he mentioned.
“I’m excited to make use of this second to tune in and perceive what the altering wants of our inner neighborhood are,” Rauth mentioned in a press release. “Our programmers are the spine of Consolation Station. With out their labor, creativity and drive, we might not exist. I hope to make use of this interim 12 months of continued transition to take inventory of all of the power and expertise that lives right here already and construct a stronger base to help that work.”
With the nonprofit’s modifications and development, the Consolation Station staff determined to present Rauth an interim title to find out what they might need to change after the transitional 12 months.
“We wished to place the ‘interim’ on there to present them a 12 months to steer the ship, discover what Consolation Station must be doing subsequent 12 months, after which going into 2027, the group will likely be settling into extra of what the long run construction is,” Martins mentioned.
The management change coincides with the constructing’s six-month inside and exterior renovation, which is anticipated to start in January and final via subsequent summer season, Martins mentioned.
The practically 100-year-old city-owned constructing will obtain exterior tuckpointing and portray, inside plumbing, electrical and lighting work as a part of the primary main overhaul for the reason that constructing reopened to the general public in 2010.
The Consolation Station will likely be closed for the renovation interval and reopen subsequent summer season with a retrospective exhibition and a centennial celebration deliberate to proceed into 2027.
Its reopening strains up with the projected completion of Logan Sq.’s visitors circle overhaul. As a part of the visitors challenge, the Consolation Station will likely be enveloped into the elevated public area close by, with Milwaukee Avenue now not going via the sq. space.
Regardless of the historic constructing being on metropolis property, its applications are all community-funded, and the nonprofit doesn’t get to chop strains for metropolis funding. This makes its annual fundraisers and neighborhood plant gross sales the group’s primary monetary supply. Rauth launched Consolation Station’s annual gala occasion in 2024, and it’s raised $50,000 in two years for the group’s artwork applications.
As Martins prepares to exit, he’s proud the group has attracted like-minded individuals who have organized a few of its free neighborhood applications.
“Consolation Station has taught me quite a bit in regards to the significance of public area and about areas which are owned by town [but] being utilized by individuals in these extra casual methods,” he mentioned. “I believe there’s a whole lot of alternatives in Chicago for extra issues like this to occur; I hope town can pursue that.”
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