• Members of Hatch: A Hamtramck Art Collective are busy transforming an old police station into an art center. In February, the Hamtramck City Council passed a resolution to give the art collective a one-year option to purchase the former police station for $1.

  (From left)

• The building's current look. Photo by Patrick Daly
• The future look, by cartoonist and printmaker Sean Bieri. Photo by Sean Bieri

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In Hamtramck, painters, potters photographers, musicians, writers and other creative types are busy transforming an old police station into an art center.

Volunteers are sweeping and scrubbing floors, picking up trash, and mowing the grass. An architect has inspected the building and determined what repairs and renovations are needed. A loan officer is researching grant opportunities. Many have volunteered to write grant applications. Others are planning fundraisers. Chris Schneider, president of Hatch: A Hamtramck Art Collective hopes to see the building fully functional as an art center by this time next year. Before that, it will be used for meetings and perhaps a gallery show in the fall.

Many cities talk about supporting the arts; Hamtramck puts its money where its mouth is. In February, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution to give the art collective a one-year option to purchase the former police station for $1. City officials and business owners say culture is important to the success of their two-square-mile city within the larger city of Detroit.

“The Hamtramck City Council is very progressive I think,” said Schneider, 39, a photographer and photography instructor who lives in Hamtramck. “It’s rather rare that a government really reaches out to help a community art group. They recognize we bring quality and interest, creativity and energy to the area. It helps build community pride.”

Since the 1990s, artists have flocked to Hamtramck, attracted by cheap property, low rent, space for lofts and studios, and an interesting multi-ethnic community where there is no need for a car and the corner bars host a wide variety of bands, said Greg Kowalski, 57, chairman of the Hamtramck Historical Commission and editor of the Birmingham Eccentric Newspaper.

For the past decade, the city has hosted the Hamtramck Blowout, the largest showcase of purely local music in the country. On the first weekend in March, rock, metal, hip-hop, jazz and bands of every creed and color perform in neighborhood bars. This year, the event showcased 241 bands performing in 18 bars to 7,000 people., said Eve Doster Knepp, 33, producer of this year’s event and owner of Norwegian Blue PR in Detroit. This year, Hatch coordinated the opening of a juried art exhibition with Blowout weekend.

“Over the years, there has been a strong artist community in Hamtramck,” said Catrina Stackpoole, 55, a member of the City Council and executive director of Recycled Treasures, a Hamtramck nonprofit. “They have played a positive role in organizing events for artists, supporting each others’ work, and community building. A lot of artists participate in events like Clean Sweep, a city-wide cleanup, and Preserve Our Parks, planting trees. They make our city beautiful in so many ways. It behooves Hamtramck to support them in any way we can. I think it’s a win-win situation.”

Kowalski, who is longtime Hamtramck resident and author of Hamtramck: The Driven City, agreed: “We have a large artistic community and they need a center. They’re a tremendous asset to the city. When we can establish a reputation as an artist community, it reinforces a positive image. That is what a city really needs.”

In fact, Hatch was born from the idea that the arts can be an economic stimulus to a city. Three years ago, Schneider was working on the Hamtramck Beautification Commission, finding art to decorate city buildings, when he met Erik Tungate. Hamtramck’s former director of community and economic development challenged the photographer to organize area artists and he’d find them a building for an art center. Before he left to be business development manager at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., Tungate got the wheels moving for Hatch to one day find a home in the former police station.

“Hamtramck had a plethora of creative people but no common-led vision and no physical space,” said Tungate, who believes creative young people are responsible for an economic resurgence in Hamtramck and greater downtown Detroit. “I thought the city could act as a fiduciary in providing space.”

In April 2006, Schneider and 11 other artists formed Hatch, so named because the collective was intended to be an incubator for artists — helping them to survive and grow. In only two years, the group has grown to more than 50 and become an active 501(c)(3) nonprofit with an 11-member board of directors. Typical activities include monthly art exhibits and critique sessions at Café 1923, comic book making workshops, and Dr. Sketchy drawing sessions at The Belmont (bar patrons pay $5 to sketch scantily clad women — usually burlesque dancers. Most of the money goes to models, a little goes to Hatch).

“It’s a natural relationship between artists and coffeehouses,” said Sean Kowalski, 45, one of three owners of Café 1923, which has acted as an informal center for the group. “I want a vibrant arts community in my city. As a citizen and business owner, I like that these people bring people into the city. I couldn’t be happier that they have the opportunity to take what could be a decaying building and make good use of it.”

Scott Collins, 25, an architect with S3 Architecture in Farmington, Hamtramck resident and member of Hatch, estimates repairs and renovations to the former police station, a two-story brick building with 6,000 square feet of floor space, will cost $150,000. This includes an environmentally sustainable roof to replace a leaky flat one, new heating and plumbing systems, and reconfiguration of the first floor space. Artist volunteers will do light work including painting, replacing dry wall and ceiling tiles, and cleaning up the building. Plans for the first floor include a gallery, a gift shop, a classroom, and a community art space with a dark room, a kiln and a printing press, Schneider said. The dark room, kiln and printing press were donated. The second floor will be made into 12 artist studios.

Another Hatch member, Kim Thompson, 46, a loan officer for the Michigan Interfaith Trust Fund, with dual headquarters in Detroit and Lansing, is researching grant programs to help finance the project. The Oak Park resident and other Hatch members also volunteered to write grant applications. The arts collective will also hold fundraisers, including an art auction with a dinner, live music and dancing, Schneider said.

“We’re really excited,” said Mayor Karen Majewski, 53. “The longer the building sits vacant, the more it will deteriorate. It’s perfect for us. It puts the building to good use and takes it off the city’s hands.”