The Valparaiso Creative Council’s new home is now officially open for business – the business of creating art.

Thursday’s ribbon cutting and open house offered the chance to showcase the studios at 256 Indiana Ave.

It’s a studio, not a gallery. Artists’ Guild of Valparaiso across the street supplies that need. Together, they anchor the west end of the arts district on Indiana Avenue.

The McMillan Valpo Creates Center will serve as a place for people to create, whether it’s painting, sculpting, podcasting, dancing, cooking or something else.

The council intends for the center to serve all art forms, artists and organizations.

Executive Director Jessica Corral said the center can be used for a variety of events. Currently, the council is focused on attracting space rentals. Beginning in 2026, she predicted, the council will offer its own programming there.

Artists who want to use the studio at odd hours will be able to enter a code in the door lock to get in so keys don’t have to be exchanged, Corral said.

The center has four distinct spaces to offer the community – the City Center Events space, which can serve up to 150 people; Quackenbush Art Studio Education Space, for up to 50 people; Purdue Northwest Conference Room, up to 35 people; and Porter County Community Center Artist Hub, up to three artists at a time.

Artists will be able to store their works in progress on-site.

The 3,000-square-foot space required months of renovation.

One of its former tenants was radio station WVLP. Mayor Jon Costas remembers recording music there. “I made a lot of bad music in this studio,” he said.

Costas has been a driving force behind the creation of the Valparaiso Creative Council and the arts district.

The arts bring people together, he said, “and these days, we need things that unite us, right? They remind us that we have a whole lot more in common than the few things that divide us.”

“I think this is the start of a lot of really big stuff,” Costas said.

Stewart McMillan, one of the major donors, said he hopes the center is a proving ground that will lead to a larger, permanent facility in the future.

The council was homeless for eight years until the new center opened, Corral said.

The council grew out of the America’s Best Communities competition, she said. Corral got involved and quickly was asked to accompany the mayor to North Carolina as part of the competition.

The Valparaiso Creative Council created a checklist of tasks to accomplish and has been working through that list, Corral said. Now the council is gathering input from the public on what tools and programming they want to see at the new center.

The council aims to be a support system for artists, helping them become more adept in marketing and social media and getting the resources they need.

Costas gave Corral credit for her leadership. “She is a champion of the arts, but she’s multi-talented,” he said. “She knows how to ask for money for something important, and that’s important for a leader. She knows how to get people together. She knows how to cast a vision.”

“One person, a leader, makes a difference,” he said, “but it’s about a lot of leaders coming together and making things happen,” a nod to the board of directors.

Corral said the Indiana Avenue location is appropriate, based on what she learned from Porter County Historian Kevin Pazour. The alley beside the center used to be called Maker’s Row. “Back in the 1890s, this is where the leather workers, the blacksmiths, the bricklayers, the ironworkers all lived, so it’s a very special part of the street.”

“I just find it really beautiful that not only this strip that used to be here back in the 1890s and be focused on the creative spirit, and then the music that was made here, it’s now kind of come full circle for us to find this as our home,” she said.

“There’s an opportunity for any kind of creator. Whether you’re a professional, whether you’re somebody that wants to dive into something new, we’re going to have instructors that are going to be teaching all kinds of things – deejaying, ballet, yoga, chunky knit blankets,” Corral said.

“We have so many people from the community that want to teach creative things, and this is where it’s going to happen. It’s really to bridge all the differences together. Any age group, from bookend to bookend. We really want to be here to facilitate all of that. And that’s really what the dream is,” she said.

Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.