Springboard for the Arts’ new home on University Avenue in St. Paul will have front-door access to the Green Line, neighbors it’s been working with like Little Mekong and Rondo, lots of natural light and a rooftop view of the Capitol dome.

But Springboard’s executive director, Laura Zabel, is most excited about the parking lot. She has a vision for the cracked asphalt, litter-strewn expanse just outside the huge garage doors in the building that once housed Saxon Ford. Zabel sees food trucks parked there. Community celebrations. A marketplace.

Springboard hopes that by 2019 or 2020, it will leave its home of 27 years in Lowertown’s Northern Warehouse Building for 262 University Ave. in Frogtown. The $5 million project has been launched with a $500,000 commitment to the capital fund from the St. Paul, F.R. Bigelow and Mardag foundations.

Zabel walks through the space that was once the Ford dealership’s showroom, its picture windows plastered with posters announcing an open house at the site Saturday. She sees the space as a home for workshops, exhibits, neighborhood gatherings. Behind the showroom are offices and recently upgraded restrooms. Buckets and cleaning supplies point to the work Springboard employees have been doing to get the building ready for the open house.

The rooftop could be used for a community garden and beekeeping, Zabel says.

The huge shop area at the back of the building, once used to prep and detail cars, has potential for all sorts of projects, she says. And the shop doors open tall to that parking lot, of course.

Originally called Resources and Counselling for the Arts when it started as part of United Arts in the late 1970s, Springboard helps artists and arts organization build their business skills. Zabel calls it a “community-development organization run by and for artists.”

“We want them to see art as a viable way to make a living,” Zabel said. “We want more people to recognize themselves as artists.”

Health insurance, marketing, business skills for artists. Springboard has worked with 250-some programs along those lines, Zabel says. The “Irrigate” initiative looked at arts along the Green Line during light-rail construction. The organization has growing relationships in Frogtown with groups such as the Asian Economic Development Association.

Katie Ka Vang of the AEDA says one of the most visible partnerships between Springboard and her organization are the Artist Resource Popups. “Springboard will come in and provide free artist services for artists in our community — whether the services needed are digitizing work, fixing a website, putting a business plan together, taking head shots, or getting information about a business loan — sometimes artists arrive thinking of utilizing one service and end up using other services.

“That’s sort of the beauty of it — the one-stop shop free of cost,” said Vang, director of artist and maker entrepreneurship for AEDA.

Springboard has a deep love for and commitment to Lowertown, Zabel says, but the search for a new home started about a year ago. There wasn’t a lot available that was affordable for the arts organization.

Zabel always thought her organization’s ideal space would be “something like 262 University” — though vacant, it wasn’t for sale. When other searches proved fruitless, she looked up her ideal space. It had just gone on the market.

“It feels definitely like serendipity,” she said. Related Articles See inside some amazing Minnesota homes — without leaving your own

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