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Pilsen Art Collective ACRE Chicago Giving Former Funeral Home New Life

By Stephanie Lulay | June 22, 2015 1:52pm
 ACRE Chicago, a Pilsen art collective, is moving into a vacant building that once housed a funeral home.
ACRE Chicago, a Pilsen art collective, is moving into a vacant building that once housed a funeral home.
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DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay

PILSEN — A Pilsen-based arts collective plans to expand their art programming, giving a former funeral home a new life in the process.

ACRE Chicago has already moved into the unique building at 1345 W. 19th St., which previously housed a funeral home in the neighborhood. Now, the Pilsen arts group is looking for help to remodel the 2,200-square-foot space.

ACRE received a $50,000 donation toward the renovation of the former funeral home and also completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising $21,500 to cover the remaining expenses.

Now hosting a slew of exhibitions and art programs each year developed by a team of 30 volunteers, ACRE Chicago needs more space, Green said. Since ACRE's launch in 2010, the exhibitions program has operated out of a 400-square-foot storefront attached to Green's apartment. The new building will more than double the group's exhibition space, include dedicated areas for art programming and allow the arts organization to greatly expand its outreach in Pilsen.

Built in 1933 as the second home of the Bohemian Linhart Funeral Home, Green said her purchase of the property almost didn't happen.

When the building hit the market, it was listed far out of her price range, and even after a significant price reduction, was still out of her budget.

But despite the cost, Green couldn't stop thinking about the building's unique features, which include terrazzo floors, stained glass windows and a private courtyard. Owners who purchased the property in 2006 also intended to use the building as art space, but plans for a gallery never came to fruition, Green said.

"It was so perfect, but I started to think it wasn't going to happen," she said. With real estate prices climbing in Pilsen and developers buying properties "site unseen," Green said she thought the property could have been torn down altogether.

The building at 1345 W. 19th St. in Pilsen features terrazzo floors (left) and stained glass windows (right). [ACRE Chicago]

But she wouldn't give up on the "very unique and unusual" building. Green wrote a letter to the owner, explaining her love for the building and making a longshot offer.

"I explained how the unique building was an inspiration to artists, that having a space like this would do a lot for us," she said.

Much to her surprise, the building's owners accepted her offer — they didn't want to sell to developers, she said.

ACRE is working with A Squared Architectural Design to plan a community arts center in the 19th Street building. If all goes well, the arts collective hopes to open the new building in September.

As ACRE moves in, building renovations will include the creation of static and modular exhibition walls, lighting installation and gallery storage. The build-out will also include a flex space that the group can use to host performances, lectures and screenings. The flex space will also house The Suzumoto Library, a permanent space for ACRE's archives and book collection.

ACRE Chicago has already moved into the unique building at 1345 W. 19th St., and the group is working to remodel the space. [ACRE Chicago]

ACRE, which stands for Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibition, was founded in 2010 to provide artists with an affordable and collaborative residency program each summer in rural Steuben, Wis. The residency brings together 80 artists from across disciplines to create a regenerative community of cultural producers.

In the year after artists participate in the residency, ACRE gives the artists the opportunity to participate in their exhibitions program in Chicago.

The Bohemian Linhart Funeral Home was first established in a building across the street in Pilsen in 1885. As part of an expansion, Joseph Linhart built the 1345 W. 19th St. building in 1933. In the 1960s, the Linhart family built a new funeral home on Cermak Road in suburban Berwyn, where the funeral home continues to operate today.

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