Brecksville Center for the Arts to reopen, relocate to Human Services Center

by Jacqueline Mitchell 

After being closed for nearly a year, the Brecksville Center for the Arts is reopening, relocated to the city’s Human Services Center, announced Mayor Jerry Hruby. 

“Last year, we closed the Center for the Arts,” Hruby said. “Unfortunately, there was no one left on the board. They were in financial difficulty. They were having trouble meeting their expenses and paying the teachers.” 

The center provided art instruction and programming for all ages, from children to adults, since 1991. 

Previously operated by a private nonprofit organization, the center will fall under Human Services Director Steve Paciorek’s supervision, Hruby said. 

The mayor said he believes moving the Center for the Arts to Human Services is in the city’s best interests. 

“There are two classrooms there that have linoleum floors that are perfect and were put in that building for crafts and for art,” he said, adding that years ago those rooms were home to painting classes. 

Hruby said the move is also beneficial from the standpoints of parking availability and sharing of city staff. 

“It is a volunteer organization, and we hope to run it as a volunteer organization, which is typical of Human Services,” he said. “It just got somewhat expensive to operate it on behalf of a private organization, and their ability to raise the money and ability to get grants was not there.” 

What will the city do with the old Center for the Arts building, located at 8997 Highland Dr.? 

“We have a garage at the Highland Cemetery that needs to be replaced,” Hruby said. “We’ve talked about that for years. We’re also just about out of space for graves at Highland. … We feel that we can create more graves at Highland, where everyone wants to go, by removing that [garage] and re-excavating that area and adding additional graves.” 

The old Center for the Arts building, across the street from the cemetery, can be used as a headquarters for cemetery staff and as a storage garage. 

“We think that this is the best possible plan for utilizing that space and to generate a new Center for the Arts, more enthusiasm having it where the hub is and where things are happening and taking place at the Community Center,” Hruby said. 

While the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the center’s transition, the mayor said the city would move forward with the project, including presenting plans to Brecksville City Council, “once we get back to some further sense of normalcy.”