Hoff Family Arts & Culture Center

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[Danna Kehm] We're at the Hoff Family Arts and Cultural Center. It is home to five arts and cultural non-profits. PACE, Pottawattamie Arts Culture and Entertainment, American Midwest Ballet, Chanticleer Theater, Kanesville Symphony Orchestra and Kitchen Council. We share this beautiful 9,500 square foot facility. We have everything from visual arts, performing arts, culinary arts, all in one space. By sharing the building, we're able to support each other's missions and ultimately be stronger by sharing the same space.

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[Narrator] Constructed in 1894 by the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, this four-story Victorian brick building served as a storage and transfer house for the distribution of farm implements across the United States, creating an agricultural cornerstone in Council Bluffs.

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[Danna Kehm] There was over 24 farm implement companies in town. 17 of them were located in this implement district where we are now. It was a huge part of why Council Bluffs was so successful, especially as being the start of the Transcontinental Railroad. This space and this implement district, Council Bluffs, had 11 rail lines that truncated here or stopped here before it went into the Transcontinental Railroad. So, railroad was critical to Council Bluffs and its growth as well as the growth of the agricultural industry. And that is really why this district existed was to help get that farm equipment out to the U.S. using those rail lines.

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[Narrator] The McCormick Harvesting Machine Company closed its doors in 1964. Despite once being the anchor of Council Bluffs' implement district, the building would be used as a storage location before sitting empty for nearly 20 years. In 2012, the McCormick Warehouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places and in 2016 it became home to Pottawattamie Arts Culture and Entertainment, a non-profit community arts group known as PACE. With financial support from Council Bluffs natives Dr. Ted and Polly Hoff, PACE embarked upon a major restoration project, including a brand new wing to transform the property into a cultural destination. Construction began in 2016 and the Hoff Family Arts and Culture Center opened in 2020.

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[Danna Kehm] It was wonderful to try to restore this building because it, first of all, had great bones. And it was a big, beautiful, open warehouse. So, we tried to maintain as much as possible when it came to the original building. So, as you walk through the space you'll see beautiful columns, the original paint, we kept some of the nicks and things that are found in the pillars. You'll look up and see wonderful historic beams, the cast iron moldings that help keep the building in place and helped prevent fires in the early fire prevention, and you'll just see the industrial beauty of the building with the exposed brick and the hardwood floors. And we truly wanted to maintain that to honor the integrity of the building and honor the history of what this building was originally used for, which was the storage of farm equipment.

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[Narrator] Wooden doors throughout the McCormick Building have been meticulously maintained and restored. Outward swinging freight doors lead to a former loading dock, which has been repurposed into a common area.

[Danna Kehm] We took special care to maintain and restore the wrap around loading dock. And this dock currently serves as our wrap around patio. So, it is a beautiful space for us to showcase the building as well as provide another gathering space for the building.

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[Narrator] Each of the large windows throughout the warehouse building are replicas designed from two original windows that remained intact.

[Danna Kehm] One of the best spaces in the building is the fourth floor gallery because the floor plan actually looks very similar to the original warehouse. And in this space, you can really see the charm and the history and the original use of the space.

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[Danna Kehm] We are very fortunate to have Grant Wood, who was actually in Council Bluffs in the 1920s, he painted some very beautiful murals in one of the historic hotels in town. And we are now the permanent home for those murals. The beauty about that is it helps capture our history and helps us remember how important not only our community is, but also how important art is for our community.

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[Narrator] From the outside, the old McCormick Building embraces its history, proudly presenting itself as the community staple it once was and has always been.

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[Danna Kehm] Part of that, the decision to keep that title and that paining on the outside of the building was because the farming industry was so important to Council Bluffs and it really led to sort of the agricultural boom for Council Bluffs right around the turn of the century. Obviously, it's a huge industry for Iowa. It really fueled the economy for a lot of Council Bluffs and the surrounding farms. So, for us it was important to make sure that that was still visible and we are still honoring the history and what this building stood for, for many, many years.

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[Danna Kehm] As we got into the visioning process and talking with the arts partners that were going to be sharing this space, we realized that even though this is a big, beautiful warehouse, it wasn't necessarily going to meet all of the needs that we had for the performing arts partners, especially the theater space and the ballet space. They needed a performing arts center to be able to do everything that they needed to do to grow and become successful. And so that led to the creation of our addition, the actual performing arts center.

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[Narrator] PACE and the Hoff Family Arts and Culture Center worked closely with the National Park Service to make sure the project honored the integrity of the site and provided a historical reference to what came before. Today, it is one of the largest additions on a historic property in the United States.

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[Danna Kehm] So, when you look at the building, we took careful pains to make sure it was a cousin, not a twin of the building. And that was directly by feedback that we got from the National Park Service. So, you'll see a lot of the same scale, a lot of the same lines. I would hope that you would be amazed by all of the wonderful things we have going on within the space. It's not uncommon for us to hear wow, is this really Council Bluffs? Do we really have a world class arts and culture center right here in Council Bluffs? Absolutely, we do.

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[Danna Kehm] Whether you're taking a ballet class or you're taking a cooking class or you're participating in the children's theater on stage or you're taking one of our pottery classes, that you realize how important the arts are for our community and how important this building is for our community.

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[Danna Kehm] I think it's important for us to remember where we came from and where we want to go. And I think history allows us to do that and the buildings that we use allow us to remember where we came from. And again, this building was so important for our community and this district was so important for our community that we wanted to make sure that we provided a great tenant for it to make sure it survives for another 150 years.

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