A dormant building on Chestnut Street in downtown Wyandotte is destined for new life as an arts incubator for the Downriver community, thanks to a recent $450,000 grant from the city’s Downtown Development Authority last week.

“The art center will give more people a reason to come to Wyandotte. It connects the dots between our museum and galleries,” said Heather Thiede, special events coordinator for the Wyandotte DDA.

The community beside the Detroit River hosts the second-largest outdoor art fair in the state of Michigan, just two years younger than the state’s leading art fair in Ann Arbor. More than 250,000 people come to wander its abundant galleries and boutiques.

Wyandotte’s DDA purchased the 100-year-old building for $375,000 in 2007 and expects to put up to $1.3 million in improvements to transform it into studios, performance space and exhibition areas. Throughout Michigan, art incubators with live-work space, performance theaters and galleries are surging ahead.

“The Wyandotte art incubator project is a great example of how to leverage the creative assets in our region,” said Doug Rothwell, president of Detroit Renaissance Inc. “It shows positive momentum for our initiative to grow greater Detroit’s creative economy.”

Detroit Renaissance commissioned Washington-based New Economy Strategies Inc. to prepare a best practices strategy of large creative accelerators in New Zealand; Winston-Salem, N.C.; Providence, R.I.; Orlando, Fla.; London, Charleston, S.C.; and Australia. The 29-page report is available at www.detroitrenaissance.com.

Rothwell and Renaissance board members are seeking funds to place a creative accelerator with studios, performance space and more at a downtown location on Woodward and at the renovated Argonaut Building in Detroit’s New Center, shared with the College for Creative Studies.

Creative industry jobs pay well. In fields like advertising, design and digital media, jobs pay 50 percent more than the average U.S. wage, $64,768 vs. $42,535, according to Austin Texas-based Angelou Economics, another consulting firm hired by Detroit Renaissance.

Nearly $2 billion in economic activity is generated in Michigan by arts and cultural activities. This includes the $1 billion in multiplied economic impact of nonprofit organizations networked with the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

According to the advocacy report available on ArtServe Michigan’s Web site, www.artservemichigan.org/advocacy, Michigan arts and cultural activities support directly or indirectly 108,000 jobs in Michigan. More than $1.5 billion in personal income is generated by Michigan residents who work with arts and cultural organizations. The group suggests visitors to Michigan for arts and culture are estimated to spend $65.7 million annually.

Here is a thumbnail look at a sampling of other Michigan arts incubators:

— Up to 200 young folk descend upon Artist Village in the Old Redford portion of Detroit for the Creative Juicez Poetry Show. Activities occur inside a 10,000 square-foot-art incubator and performance space funded by Motor City Blight Busters, with the help of a $50,000 grant from Masco Corp. and used car donations from individuals.

“We restored a group of storefronts and turned them into a community gathering place. It is part of a nationwide movement to reclaim cities with art and murals,” said John George, president of Blight Busters, who works with Chazz Miller, resident artist and Alicia Marion, manager of the artisan project. Soon they will open the Motor City Java House and Café to provide food for arts patrons. Live/work spaces are on the drawing board.

— A 19th century prison, with 25-foot turreted stone walls as its perimeter, is part of a 19-acre redevelopment in Jackson called Armory Arts Village. It hosted a gala grand opening in February for a first peek at a giant artistic effort. According to its Web site, the village will include a two-story, large-scale industrial art production space, a ceramics/sculpture studio and three generic classrooms/workrooms along with gallery space and performance space. For more information, go to www.enterprisegroup.org/armory-arts-project.

The Enterprise Group seeks funding for partnerships with colleges, health care systems and social service agencies for a teaching factory. The first phase was affordable rental apartments for artists meeting income qualifications.

— On Michigan’s West Coast, Bobbie Gaunt, former president and CEO of Ford Motor Co. of Canada, helped transform the defunct Lloyd J. Harris Pie Factory on Culver Street into the Saugatuck Center for the Arts. With the help of grants from the state of Michigan’s Cool Cities Initiative, the Michigan Council for the Arts & Cultural Affairs and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation among others. The arts center offers a full range of performance and gallery activities. According to James Schmiechen, chair of the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Museum, Gaunt’s vision, expertise and perseverance made possible $70,000 in capital funding and $110,000 in private challenge grants. The center adds to a rich heritage of galleries in the upscale vacation city bordering Lake Michigan. For more information, go to www.sc4a.org.

— The Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center is one of the oldest continuing arts incubators. Fifty years ago, the founders of center came to the city of Birmingham with a proposal to convert an abandoned city-owned waste-water treatment plant into a functioning community art center.

Today it has a budget of $1.4 million and offers 500 classes, workshops and camps to more than 4,000 registrants ranging from 3 to 83 years old. A current exhibit includes designs and dreams of Ruth Adler Schnee, co-owner of the once remarkable, three-story gallery and store, Adler Schnee in Harmonie Park. For more information, go to www.BBArtCenter.org.

Donna Edwards, communications director of ArtServe Michigan said numerous other projects exist, including Red Ink Studios in Flint, funded in part by the Mott Foundation; the Dwelling Place in Grand Rapids, and Russell Industrial Center, a former car factory on Detroit’s near east-side owned and funded by Boydell Development. The Russell has a MySpace page, listing itself as a hip 92-year-old, too busy making crafts to watch television.