There are moments in the life of any big dream when it stops feeling like a dream and starts feeling like a plan. For Fraser Valley Arts, this is one of those moments.
This month, we released our Request for Proposals for architectural services for the future Fraser Valley Arts Center. And honestly, we can barely contain our excitement. After years of fundraising, community organizing, and imagining what this building could be, we are finally ready to bring in the design partner who will help turn our vision into walls, windows, a stage, and a home.
From a Riverside Lot to a Community Vision
If you’ve walked along the Fraser River on the east side of U.S. 40, you’ve probably passed the land that will one day hold our arts center. It wasn’t always destined for this. Back in 2020, then-Mayor Philip Vandernail and the Town of Fraser looked at that choice piece of riverside property and saw an opportunity, not just for a building, but for a statement about what Fraser could become.
The Town donated the land to what would become Fraser Valley Arts, and in January 2021, our 501(c)(3) was officially formed. Steve Fitzgerald, a local ceramics artist and businessman who had been serving on the Town’s public arts committee, was among those who stepped up to help launch the organization, even though it was a departure from his background in corporate life. That leap of faith set off five years of momentum that has brought us here.
A Town That Was Always Artistic. It Just Needed to Say So
Fraser has never lacked artists. Long before anyone talked about an arts center, painters like Elizabeth Kurtak were showing work in galleries on East Eisenhower Drive. Watercolorist and river guide Greg McFadden was hosting house readings near Doc Susie’s historic cabin. Charles Clayton, whose family helped settle Fraser in the early 1900s, was chronicling the town’s history in photographs and prose. And other artists who came to town over the years found something rarer than scenery. A place where they felt free to become the creative people they wanted to be, without pressure to fit a particular mold.
That openness is part of why Fraser had a Pride parade long before small mountain towns across Colorado embraced them. Being “just Fraser” has always meant something.
What’s changed is that the town, and this organization, decided to build something permanent around that identity. Since 2022, Fraser Valley Arts has filled the community calendar with National Theatre Live screenings, the Alpine Art Affair, the Fraser Mountain Mural Festival (in partnership with the Town of Fraser), Plein Air @ Altitude, Holiday Markets, and rotating mini-galleries in local businesses. Drive through town today, and you’ll see the murals. Bright, bold proof that this place takes its art seriously. Every one of those events has done double duty: bringing joy and creative opportunity to our community, and building the fundraising and momentum that made this RFP possible.
Where We Stand, Financially and Otherwise
We don’t take this milestone lightly, because we know what it took to get here.
We are closing in on $4 million raised for the Center, including the land itself, which Fraser Valley Arts owns outright. That total reflects the generosity of this valley: a strong Founders Circle of major donors, a transformational matching grant from a local resident who believes in this project as much as we do, and a wide base of small and large donors who have shown up again and again for our events and our ask. We’re also a finalist for a Colorado Community Revitalization Tax Credit that could push our total as high as $6 million, a possibility that would meaningfully accelerate our timeline.
The build-out itself is estimated at somewhere between $8 million and $12 million, with the remainder likely financed through a bond from the Colorado Education and Cultural Facilities Authority. It’s an ambitious target, but every Alpine Art Affair, every mural festival, every holiday market has proven that this community shows up when we ask it to. So have the municipalities and institutions around us. The Town of Fraser, the Town of Winter Park, the Town of Granby, Grand County, the Winter Park/Fraser Chamber of Commerce, and the Grand Foundation have all contributed meaningfully, recognizing that this project benefits the whole valley, not just Fraser.
Why an Architect, and Why Now
Hiring an architectural partner is a milestone precisely because it signals that we’re moving from vision to blueprint. The RFP we released calls for a firm with real experience designing community, civic, cultural, and performing arts facilities. The building needs to look good, yes. But it needs to work for everyone who walks through its doors.
That means:
- Flexible performance and event spaces that can host everything from a play to a town hall
- Art galleries and education classrooms for exhibitions, workshops, and hands-on learning
- Community gathering spaces where people come together outside of a scheduled event
- Outdoor programming opportunities that take advantage of our riverside setting
- A genuinely collaborative design process, with community engagement built in from the start
We’re not looking for a firm to hand us a finished design in a vacuum. We’re looking for a partner who wants to sit with our community, understand what Fraser needs, and design a building that feels like it belongs here. It will anchor the town’s forthcoming river walk district, alongside the mural park and the bronze statue of Jack Kerouac that already welcomes visitors passing through on U.S. 40.
The planned facility is expected to run roughly 19,000 square feet across two or three stories, with room for a theater, a gallery, maker spaces, teaching spaces, and a bar or café. It’s a design that invites people in for more than just a scheduled performance.
Proposals are due September 4, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. MT. You can find the full RFP and submission instructions on the Career Page of our website.
More Than a Gallery. A Second Home for the Community
Steve Fitzgerald has been clear from the start that this project isn’t meant to be an exclusive, velvet-rope kind of space. The goal, as he’s described it, is a building that’s active most of the year. One that welcomes partnerships with other local nonprofits and functions as an extension of the town’s own personality. Open, inclusive, unpretentious.
That’s the vision driving this entire project: a year-round community destination where performances, visual arts, arts education, and everyday gathering all happen under one roof. Fraser has always been a place where creative expression and community life are the same thing.
We believe this Center will do more than give artists a stage and audiences a seat. Beyond ticket sales, the project is projected to generate an estimated $2 million a year in positive economic impact for the community, thanks to its position as a draw for visitors to the town’s emerging river walk district. Infrastructure improvements are already underway (water, sewer, gas, electric, and fiber optic upgrades) funded through a Colorado Department of Local Affairs grant. It’s setting the stage for that growth, and the area’s Amtrak connection from Denver’s Union Station gives us a built-in invitation to Front Range visitors looking for a reason to head to the mountains.
We also believe it will give young, not-yet-confident artists a place to discover that being “Fraser” is a pretty cool thing to be.
Thank You for Getting Us Here
None of this happens without the people who have believed in Fraser Valley Arts from the beginning. Our Founders Circle members. Our matching-grant donor. Every attendee at Plein Air @ Altitude and the Holiday Markets. Every business that’s hosted a mini-gallery. And definitely our partners at the Town of Fraser, the Fraser Valley Recreation District, Rendezvous Colorado, and the Winter Park/Fraser Chamber of Commerce.
Hiring an architect isn’t the finish line. It’s the moment the blueprint starts to become real. We’re beyond excited to take this step with you, and we can’t wait to show you what comes next.
Stay tuned! And if you haven’t yet, please come see the murals, catch a show, or stop by our next event. This Center is being built by this community, one commitment at a time.
