PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Wintergreen Arts Center is counting down the days until its decade long lease agreement, which includes free rent, free heat and free electricity, comes to an end.
Wintergreen is looking for revenue opportunities and possibly a new location before the organization’s lease agreement expires on Oct. 31, 2018.
“We’re in the process of talking to the current landlord and see if we can get a reduced rent deal,” said WIntergreen Executive Director Dottie Hutchins.
Just in case, the center also is looking around The Star City for another potential location.
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- Wintergreen Arts Center executive director Dottie Hutchins, left, with arts teacher Corey Levesque and Mckenzie Hersey, a local artist and fifth-grader, at the Presque Isle center’s 10th anniversary open house last year. (File photo/Anthony Brino)
“But our board of directors wants to stay here in our current location,” she said.
“We may not be in this space, but we’ll definitely be somewhere else,” she said. “We prefer to stay downtown and stay near Main Street.”
The center’s preschool programs are successful and have a wait list two years out, she said. Expanding that program could help pay for rent.
Since Wintergreen moved from the Aroostook Centre Mall and into its State Street location almost 10 years ago, ownership of the center’s building has changed hands multiple times and each owner has honored the initial lease agreement.
The original free lease agreement was made possible by previous owners who had acquired the property with lottery winnings, she said.
“Two guys won the Megabucks, bought the building downtown and gave (Wintergreen) a 10 year free lease — free heat, free lights, free rent, and that started in 2008,” she said.
Hutchins said that under the original lease, at the end of the ten years, the owners were to start charging $2,500 per month for rent. She estimated that utilities could cost another $1,000 per month.
The facility currently pays for operational costs with program fees and about $10,000 raised annually in donations. Wintergreen also obtained a $20,000 grant last year from the city of Presque Isle to run city art programs.
The building’s current owner, Dr. Kurt Young has owned the building over two years, she said.
“He totally honored our lease, it’s amazing,” she said. “He’s extremely generous.”
She said she has not spoken to him yet about what he expects to charge going forward.
“We have no problems that money can’t solve,” Hutchins added. “Wintergreen is doing well, we’re vibrant, we have all kinds of things going on and people know we’re here.”
But if a bargain with the landlord can’t be reached by the time the lease runs out, she said the first place the center will look is at grant options to stave off raising program prices.
“Our initiative is to not be somewhere in a building where everybody comes to us,” she said about the future. “We really want to be out and around town and doing things as well. What we really need to do is find revenue sources such as grants, philanthropists, those types of connections are what we need to make. I know they’re not a miracle, I know those people are out there, but do they feel vested in an art center in northern Maine? There’s people with all kinds of resources that give money away — we just need to find one.”
