‘Realization of community dreams’ — Minneapolis arts center breaks ground on major expansion
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On Tuesday, the Pillsbury House + Theatre community celebrated the groundbreaking of a major expansion for the longtime South Minneapolis center for arts and economic development.
“The Pillsbury Creative Commons is actually the realization of community dreams that started over a decade ago,” said Signe V. Harriday, artistic producing director at Pillsbury House + Theatre. “The community has been waiting for a long time for this kind of investment in South Minneapolis that has been under-invested in and disinvested over many generations.”
The new construction next door will include artist housing for artists-in-residence and a scene shop for workforce development training in theater tech and design.
There will also be a new studio for KRSM Radio. Mike Brooks, a longtime volunteer DJ and the new station manager, said KRSM’s mission is to provide a platform for marginalized people and stories that traditional media have misrepresented.
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“It means everything to me,” Brooks said. “To know now that when people come looking for us, they can find us on Chicago Avenue, right here in the heart of the city, right here in this wonderful space that we get to call home — I’m so blessed.”
Brooks told the crowd that, in its new home, the station will provide training in broadcast media, audio recording and engineering, investigative journalism and voiceover work.
“We are the platform and we are the on-ramp,” Brooks said.
The scene shop will be set up in the former Halvey’s Body Shop on the block.
“That was the dream of a number of designers of color many years ago who looked around and went, ‘Why are we the only ones?’ and sought to remedy that situation,” said Noël Raymond, Pillsbury’s director of arts and culture.
Pillsbury Creative Commons is set to open July 26, 2025, during the annual Inside Out block party.
