BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Banana Factory served the Lehigh Valley for more than two decades before closing on New Year’s Day last year.<\/p>\n
In its place rises the New ArtsQuest Creative Factory.<\/p>\n
Construction is moving along, and now we have an update from the site.<\/p>\n
It is right on schedule for a grand opening in 2027.<\/p>\n
“It is a bigger, better, newer Banana Factory, that adds more disciplines,” said ArtsQuest CEO and President Kassie Hilgert.<\/p>\n
Hilgert says the ArtsQuest Creative Factory is coming in on budget and ahead of schedule. Upon completion, the area will be transformed into a 5-story, 80,000 square-foot performing arts and educational center.<\/p>\n
“It is looking like about $32 million is the price tag for the building,” said Hilgert. “We’ve raised about $27.8 million from 17 corporations, 15 foundations, and almost 200 individuals, so great community support so far.”<\/p>\n
Dignitaries broke ground on the Creative Factory on West Second Street last June. When finished, it will house 36 art studios, 9 classrooms, a comedy theater and a Martin Guitar recording studio.<\/p>\n
“Jewelry and metal working, ceramics, we’re actually more than doubling our ceramics footprint. Hot glass, woodworking, metal working,” said Elena Ostock, ArtsQuest Visual Arts Manager.<\/p>\n
The classes and disciplines will be open to everyone in the community.<\/p>\n
“Students, entrepreneurs, artists, retirees, elderly, pre-k, we want them to embrace this space as their own,” Hilbert said.<\/p>\n
If all goes according to plan, the ArtsQuest Creative Factory will have a soft opening in November, with the grand opening set for January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Banana Factory served the Lehigh Valley for more than two decades before closing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[66812,225,4655,153,155,154,12590,2347,228,7576,157,66813],"class_list":["post-146520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-art-studios","tag-artsquest","tag-banana-factory","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-ceramics","tag-community-support","tag-creative-factory","tag-grand-opening","tag-lehigh-valley","tag-performing-arts-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}