By Josh Blanc and Jennifer Young
Ashley Templeton, the Marketing and Arts & Culture Program Manager for the Anacostia Business Improvement District in Washington DC, invited Board President Jennifer Young and Board Chair Josh Blanc to attend the May 13th, 2026 Arts & Economic Impact Solutions Summit, a high-level economic forum exploring how communities can build successful, self-sustaining creative business hubs. The Forum was held in Downtown Anacostia – DC’s official Arts & Culture District, known as ART to GO-GO
The Summit was full of highly credentialed individuals, including economists, bankers, developers, art organizations, business owners, poets, multimedia artists, musicians, economic development planners, and community members. We were very impressed with their highly engaged collection of speakers and audience members. Anicosta Executive Director Kristina Noell and Lee Davenport, Director of Community Development, US Ignites, ran the Summit. The topics and discussions for each panel were: how do they build creative business hubs that are economically strong, culturally vibrant, and sustainable over time? Jennifer Young was part of the first panel discussion.
Sir Harvey Intro & Poem proved by Jeremy Reaves
Best intro to a conference ever!
The first topic was: Designing the Creative Business Hub: What Actually Works.
When asked how the Northeast Minneapolis District is funded, Jennifer said “our Arts District has not survived on grant or city funding. The city has not funded the Arts District. Only at its inception in 2002 did Council Member Paul Ostrow help secure a $60,000 McKnight Foundation grant to create the Arts Action Plan. Council Member Ostrow and his staff were the ones who pushed the idea through the city that the district, with an industrial overlay, was necessary to protect the artist.”
Jennifer stressed that our art district board has worked to generate income to fund our programming. Projects like the NE calendar, working with a local newspaper, the Northeaster, reaching 50,000 readers a month, and fundraisers, such as our spring and fall speakeasy and arts events, have been the Arts District’s primary funding sources. She encouraged the Anacostia Arts community to include artists at every step of their development and to honor their neighborhood history, building deep community engagement and a love of place. She also encourages them to be as self-sufficient as possible and to avoid depending on grant money. Jennifer said “Grants are short-term, and money can disappear in the blink of an eye.” Later, she suggested building a database of available space within the District to share with artists, creative businesses, and companion businesses looking to locate there.
- Topic: Designing the Creative Business Hub: What Actually Works
- Moderator: Kristina Noell (Anacostia BID)
- Speakers: Jennifer Young (Northeast Minneapolis Arts District), Courtney Snowden (Blueprint Strategies), Amanda McConnell (Brookings), Abby Becker (Station North Arts District)
- Focus of Discussion: What does it actually take to build a thriving creative business district?
- This session brings together national and local leaders in arts districts, economic development, and placemaking to examine the real-world dynamics behind successful creative business hubs. Moving beyond theory, the conversation will focus on how districts are intentionally designed to support a balanced and sustainable mix of uses – from local businesses and cultural spaces to destination anchors and neighborhood-serving services.
- Panelists explored how to activate vacant storefronts, increase foot traffic, and create places that people want to visit, invest in, and return to. Central to the discussion is the role of tenant mix – not just who occupies space, but how those uses work together to drive economic activity and long-term viability.
Discussions aimed to understand where and how to establish a sustainable arts district.
Later in the day, Josh Blanc joined the panel discussion on Attraction and Identity, where he noted that the Arts Action Plan is the guiding document for the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. In one exchange, about how artists find run-down areas and see opportunities to find reasonable rents and spaces to work in. How does a community work to ensure artists are not pushed out after financial forces enter the community? Josh stated that artists are not private equity groups. They don’t come to live in communities to extract wealth for others. They are community-oriented and work to rebuild the spaces where they work. In turn, their presence helps build identity and a sense of community. Artists need community artists as symbiotic community members and should work to devise strategies to ensure artists can remain in the long term, so that economic forces don’t push them out.
There are many speakers during the Summit. Two of them stood out to us. The Poet Harvey Fitz and Stanley Jackson, President & CEO of the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation, both had some very inspiring words to share with the world.
After listening to all the speakers and the comments from the Summit attendees, Jennifer and Josh came away with the impression that Anacostia Arts Community has all the ingredients to be a very successful Arts District.
