This historic Wynwood arts complex starts renovations with $2 million from city of Miami
One of Miami’s largest and oldest arts organizations has big plans for its Wynwood property, from an updated interior design to affordable housing. But first, it has to take care of its nearly 100-year-old building’s bones.
Bakehouse Art Complex, a Wynwood-based nonprofit that provides affordable artist studio space, is starting the first phase of a multiyear renovation process this week. The organization will use the $2 million grant it received from the City of Miami to address structural issues and repair the Art Deco-era building’s beams and columns.
Cathy Leff, the Bakehouse executive director, thanked the city for its support to help Bakehouse maintain the building. The city commission allocated the $2 million grant to Bakehouse from the federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. The group has also secured $1 million from the Knight Foundation to boost the building’s digital integration and $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund its redesign.
“Everybody loves Bakehouse and wants to make sure that it moves on,” Leff said. “The city’s investment is an indication of how important we are to the life of the city.”
The complex, at 561 NW 32 St., will remain open for artists to use during renovations over the next eight months. Booklegger’s Library, located inside the building, will remain open to the public daily from noon to 5 p.m. The nonprofit is encouraging guests to book free tours to visit the space on the weekends when construction isn’t happening.
The renovations are the first step in a much larger plan to update the art complex and better serve artists and community members, Leff said. Since 2019, the organization has been planning to add affordable housing to the complex to help artists deal with the rising cost of living in South Florida. Though the process has been complicated and taken longer than the group hoped, Leff said, Bakehouse is soon “finalizing negotiations with a developer partner.”
Bakehouse has a lot on its plate, Leff said. Besides the beams and column repairs, the aging building needs a new roof. The organization also has plans to update the building’s interior, currently home to studios for over 100 artists, to serve even more people with shared workspaces for artists like photographers who may not need their own studios.
Preserving the building’s history is front of mind for the group. Last year, Bakehouse hired a conservation team to restore a chipped and faded mural — one of the oldest in Wynwood — by the late prolific artist Purvis Young.
Before it became an artists hub, the building was an industrial bakery from 1926 to 1978. It’s old name, American Bakeries Company, is still painted on the side of the building. In 1986, a group of artists retrofitted the abandoned bakery for affordable studio space.
Bakehouse plays a crucial role in supporting artists who otherwise may struggle to pay for rising costs in housing and studio rent, Leff said. Almost 70 percent of the artists the group works with make under $40,000 a year, and many work day jobs to support themselves, she said.
“We’re really working hard to pull this off because there’s such a dire and urgent need,” she said.
This story was produced with financial support from individuals and Berkowitz Contemporary Arts in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.