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Artist rendering of the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks by Westlake Reed Leskosky.
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ArtsQuest is a not-for-profit arts organization in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania that has been utilizing the arts and culture for urban revitalization. For example, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania -- once a center of industry as the home to Bethlehem Steel, but which has been less prosperous since the company closed in 1995 -- ArtsQuest turned a vacant banana distribution warehouse into an arts center, The Banana Factory, and started the free music festival Musikfest, which has drawn more than one million national and international tourists annually.
ArtsQuest is continuing its revitalization mission with SteelStacks, a new arts and culture campus that will be developed on a section of the former Bethlehem Steel plant. The campus will include a 68,000-square-foot performing arts venue, an outdoor venue, two plazas, and a centrally located town square with a newly commissioned sculpture. The site-specific sculpture, whose design, construction, and placement is being supported by the MICD25 grant, will evoke the iconic blast furnaces of the former plant, an important part of the community's history. The town square will be the focal cultural point of the city, where special events, festivals, and concerts will take place. It is expected to attract more than 700,000 people annually.
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