A high-profile arts entrepreneur from Brooklyn who recently flipped a Detroit warehouse to Dan Gilbert says he still wants to open an arts megacomplex in two abandoned Highland Park school buildings, but is looking at alternative sites because plans could fall through.

Robert Elmes, director of Galapagos Arts Space, told the Free Press that funding challenges now threaten his plans to redevelop the former Highland Park High School and community college campus, 109 Glendale, and nearby George W. Ferris elementary school, 60 Cortland St., into an arts performance and incubator space for early-career artists, complete with a 10,000-square-foot artificial lake.

If financing doesn't come through for the redevelopment's first phase, estimated to cost $40 million to $70 million, the Galapagos project could relocate to two alternative sites in Detroit, Elmes said in emails.

So far, he has made little visible redevelopment progress on the two empty schools.

Elmes, who would not give an interview for this article, did not identify the alternative locations in Detroit that he is considering.

"We'll know more in the next few months," he wrote in an email.

Elmes made national headlines in late 2014 when he announced that Galapagos Art Space would close its popular Brooklyn headquarters and reopen in Detroit because artists were getting priced out of New York and needed a new hip city to congregate in.

The group had previously considered moving to Berlin because of New York's rising rents.

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Elmes' first choice for a Galapagos Detroit location was the old Apac Paper warehouse at 1800 18th St., near Corktown and Michigan Central Station, but plans later shifted to the empty Highland Park schools. Meanwhile, Elmes relocated with his family to Detroit.

“I think Detroit has an opportunity to be the mixing chamber of the young artists in the United States," Elmes said last year in a local TV interview on "TableTalk with Brenda Perryman" show.

In that interview, he described Galapagos Detroit as a sort of "TechTown for the arts" where emerging artists could rent inexpensive studios and stay for a few years as they progress in their work and become more established. The sites would also have performance space, he said, and artists of all mediums from visual art to dance to jewelry-making would be welcomed.

Not long after arriving in Michigan, Elmes came under scrutiny when he listed the Detroit warehouse for sale in 2016 for $6.25 million after having bought it in late 2013 for $500,000, a move criticized by some on social media as profiteering. Elmes said he intended to use money from the warehouse sale to finance a more realistic plan that would put Galapagos in Highland Park.

The Corktown property eventually sold last month for an undisclosed price to Gilbert's real estate firm Bedrock.

From those sale proceeds, Elmes said he set aside $500,000 to establish a fund with the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan for supporting local nonprofits, artist spaces and social-impact projects as well as charity for children in Detroit and Highland Park.

2 schools for $20,000

In Highland Park, Elmes was able to buy two large school buildings in 2014 for less than the price of some Manhattan parking spaces.

Property records show that limited liability companies connected to Elmes bought the old Highland Park Community College campus for $18,000 and the old Ferris School elementary for $2,000. Both sales occurred while Highland Park's school district was under emergency management.

The emergency manager at the time who signed off on the deal, Gregory Weatherspoon, did not return a message for comment.

Highland Park Board of Education President Alexis Ramsey said last week that she is unaware of any redevelopment work by Galapagos at the former school buildings.

"No work has been done, no upgrades have been done, no remediation of the land has been done," Ramsey said.

Theresa Johnson, community and economic development director for Highland Park, said it is her understanding that Elmes wants a majority of the project's financing to come from state-level redevelopment incentives. That could be a challenge.

“He is waiting for 60 percent of the funding to come from the state — that is ludicrous,” Johnson said Wednesday. "He has been sitting on that property."

Empty containers

Sitting right now in the high school's back parking lot are numerous empty shipping containers. Elmes has said they could be the future foundation for an arts project, called the Container Globe, which would recreate the famous Globe Theatre of William Shakespeare's days using stacks of shipping containers.

That project is the brainchild of New York-based New Zealander and Shakespeare fanatic Angus Vail.

For his part, Elmes said the Highland Park project has indeed been on hold because few nonprofit foundations, banks or private investors are willing to invest in Highland Park, and projects within Highland Park are currently ineligible for Michigan Economic Development Corp. incentives.

Johnson, Highland Park's development chief, said the city is in the final stages of getting re-authorization for the economic development incentives. Highland Park is currently ineligible for them because its master zoning and development plan is outdated, she said.

"We are working on it," she said.

Will artists come?

There appears to be unmet demand for more artist space in Highland Park.

Robert Onnes, who runs a gallery and studio complex called 333 Midland in a former Highland Park stamping factory, said that all 16 of his artist studios are rented out.

"There's a huge amount of demand," said Onnes, 61. "I get inquiries every week looking for studio space. I think the market could handle 10 times what we provide."

He and his project partner opened 333 Midland in 2014 after spending about $400,000 out-of-pocket to refurbish the old factory building. They didn't receive any help from redevelopment incentives, he said.

A New Zealand native, Onnes said he and his wife moved to Detroit about seven years ago after reading an "Economist" article about the area's growing arts scene.

"They were telling us that this city had huge potential because of its cheap buildings. And even back then, I could see that this could be the center of the art world in America," Onnes said. "As more time goes by, the more I see that could be the case."

Fix or raze it

Some neighbors of the abandoned schools that belong to Elmes are eager to see something done with them.

Allister Pleasant, 43, who grew up in Highland Park and now works in a warehouse on Cortland across from Elmes' elementary school, said he views the blighted building as an eyesore. If it can't be redeveloped, someone should bulldoze it, he said.

"Time to fix it or tear it down. One or the other," Pleasant said.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JCReindl.