The sparkplug BY IAN DONNIS

Herb Weiss’s title with Pawtucket’s Department of Planning & Redevelopment is "program manager, development projects," but this bland description hardly captures the indefatigable approach that he brings to boosting the arts in Pawtucket. Although the 49-year-old Dallas native is quick to note that many others, including Mayor James Doyle, have enthusiastically supported the effort, it’s Weiss’s voice — the source of steady calls making animated pitches for coverage — that rings familiar.

Weiss, who took on his Pawtucket job about five years ago, after working in public policy and for gerontology trade publications in Washington, DC, is more than just talk. Emphasizing the concept of one-stop shopping, he has helped develop brochures, flyers, and databases that make it simple for interested parties to inquire about a potential loft space, business location, or tax incentive. The results are evident in the burgeoning arts community in Pawtucket, which has long dwelled in the shadow of its more populous neighbor to the south. Although there’s plenty of room for the arts to grow, Weiss also notes the importance of striking the right balance with economic development, saying, in reference to the now ultra-pricey warehouse district in Manhattan, "We don’t want a SoHo in Rhode Island." We talked in his third-floor city office at 175 Main St. in downtown Pawtucket.

Q: What’s most noteworthy about what’s happening with Pawtucket and the arts?

A: One of the things that we worked pretty hard to do is to ratchet up the level of customer service that an artist or art group would receive by coming to our city. Some people may call it competition or challenge, but I call it customer service. And when we rule out the red carpet in Pawtucket — that should be rolled out in any city or town across the state. It’s as simple as returning phone calls promptly. We have an open-door policy here, or I do, at least, where people can walk in off the street, and if I’m not in a meeting, or not on the phone, I’ll immediately see them. They’ll always walk out with information, so there’s no waiting for information to be sent.

I will even take people around the town in my car and give them the dog-and-pony show about Pawtucket, pointing out properties that are available for lease or for sale; pointing out Slater Mill Historic Site, the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. I will drive people around, and they appreciate the time you put in. Sometimes it may take up to two to three hours to spend time with a person. They never forget that.

Q: How would you describe the depth and variety of arts in Pawtucket?

A: It’s getting deeper every day. You’ve got to understand that we started with really not much in regards to evening entertainment. We now have Stone Soup in our downtown — that plays, I think, over 40 Saturday nights a year. The Gamm Theatre will be in the [Armory] annex to prepare for their official play opening in November, so we will have the Gamm Theatre. One of the things we tried to do with our arts festival was to bring arts to the public, and give them exposure to things that they may not have been able to see. The [Rhode Island] Philharmonic is a good example. Maybe not everybody can pay 30 to 50 bucks a ticket, or 200, 300 bucks a season. With the assistance of the Pawtucket Teachers Alliance and 35 local companies, we’re able to piece together $35,000 to pay for them to come to our arts festival, which included fireworks, and it was free, it was accessible, it was in the downtown. We’re working very hard to get other groups in.

The Foundry artists are coming back again in December. I think it’s the fourth year that they’ll be in Pawtucket, and we’ll do whatever we can to continue rolling out that red carpet. We’re trying to build on the visual arts. The city put $10,000 into a gallery downstairs. It’s a certified art gallery. It’s managed by a local arts group — the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative. It has 45 exhibits a year that [are] rotated, so that is another thing we’re trying to do with the arts. We don’t have the PPACs, we don’t have that level, and there’s no reason why people from Pawtucket can’t take a five-minute drive and go to PPAC, you know? But we’re trying to do our own thing. We had a sculpture show as part of our art [festival] that had over $750,000 worth of artwork, 35 museum-quality pieces. We had about 17, 18 artists who put pieces in the show. And that show probably was one of the best sculpture shows in the state of Rhode Island. It could probably match a lot of stuff in New York, but it was in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Q: How is the artistic community’s growth affecting the economic challenges in an old industrial city like Pawtucket?

A: I was talking to a local Realtor yesterday, and he can count, specifically, 200-plus leases signed in the last three or four years of artists he’s signed up in studios. Quite frankly, I know there are more artists than his 200. We see artists moving into the city and buying buildings. We have probably about six buildings within the downtown area being bought in the last year for live-work that were vacant. Most of those buildings were bought by artists, so I can say there is an economic impact with the artists coming in and doing their work. There also is an economic impact for having artists in Pawtucket.

The artists coming into the city are saying, "Hey, where are the restaurants?" We know we don’t have restaurants. We’re working on that and we created a loan program for our arts district, and now we have a revolving loan program for restaurants. We will look at any restaurant, and if they want to put an application in, we’ll review it. We make loans available up to $50,000, prime-plus one, and we realize with an arts district, you need restaurants.

We know that we have been taking opportunities that came to us: Stone Soup called us, we got them in; the Foundry artists called us, we got them in; the Gamm Theatre said, "We want to come to Pawtucket." The Pawtucket Armory Association wanted to buy our armory and create a performing arts center. But we realized we needed a roadmap, we need to be proactive. So we hired Ann Galligan, who is a professor at Northeastern University, and she is working with us to create a vision plan, to create measurable goals and objectives, so we know what we were able to achieve and we have a roadmap of where we need to go. She is totally canvassing lots of artists and art groups to say, "What do you want? What can Pawtucket do to make it a better place for you?" We’re not perfect, but we’re trying.

Q: How has Pawtucket been able to maintain and perhaps even expand support for events like the Pawtucket Arts Festival when some other communities have been struggling to keep up public and private support for arts events?

A: It hasn’t been easy. We started fundraising after Bush declared war on Iraq, with an economic downturn. What we did was, we knew last year we had a successful event [at Slater Park] of the philharmonic, so we had a very good product to sell. People we say we drew 3000 people, but I always thought it was five or six [thousand]. This year, we drew about six-to-seven thousand. We had over 200 businesses come aboard [to contribute], and you can be the first person to report this — I got my first donation for next year, for 15,000. The Pawtucket Teachers Alliance, who gave me $15,000 last year to be the name of the Pawtucket Teachers Alliance Pops in the Park with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, came back after this year’s event and they met with their board. I had approached them to say, "We want you to come back," and they voted unanimously to come back and support us. So I’m, like, sort of trying to chill out after the three-week festival and the intensity of it; I’ve already got $15,000 logged in for next year. They saw it was a quality event and they heard people talking about it. We sell quality. It was as easy as that. And also, it’s like a relationship, because I know people in Pawtucket. I deal with people all the time and they see what I’m doing. They see how the arts has brought a pride back to our city, and a lot of people love to see that . . . .

When people put back into the community, they create a better value for their property or for their company. If you are a mill owner and you want to contribute to the trolley tours [which bring passengers to six loft buildings], it’s to your self-interest, because what you’re doing is bringing people into the mills, and you may pick up an artist or two who wants to rent space.

Q: There’s been a real squeeze on affordable, decent live-work loft spaces for artists in Providence. How available does such space remain in Pawtucket?

A: We have an abundance of studios. We are still working on live-work space. I was working on that before you came here. Something I realized with my job, over the last four-and-a-half years, I’ve gotten hundreds of calls about live-work space or studio space, okay? I knew we didn’t have live-work space and I knew that one of the things I had to do as a city official was to say, "Here’s this niche. This is a niche; once you get up and running, you’ll never have to advertise for vacancies, because you’re always going to be filled if you’re a good landlord." There was a commission to revise the fire codes before the Station fire. The City of Pawtucket was proactive in passing for the quick passage of the regs, [with Doyle writing to mayors across the state, encouraging them to build support for the changes].

Now, I’m so pleased to say that I’m seeing a lot of things coming on line, [including Parkin Yarn, a long-vacant building behind the registry that will be developed with 25 live-work lofts, priced from $105,000 to $260,000; Lillypad Artist Studio Loft Condos, which will feature 29 units, priced from $163,000 to $220,000; and Riverfront Lofts, with 59 live-work lofts across from City Hall, priced from approximately $180,000 to $460,000. There are also about 100 fully occupied rental studios on Pawtucket and Esten avenues.

You can see that for eight miles in circumference, which is how big our city is, we have a lot of artist development happening. And the planning department has been pushing that, trying to get developers interested in live-work, because there is a need and we recognize the need for affordable live-work. There should be a range of options for people, and that’s what we’re trying to do — to make sure there’s a range.