By Abner Miralda–

The University of Louisville will house the studios of its Master of Fine Arts in a converted warehouse in the Portland neighborhood.

A Feb. 11 press release announced the University of Louisville Foundation will lease 27,000 square feet for 10 years in a vacant warehouse at 1606 Rowan Street. According to the release, it was built in the 1880s and has seen a variety of uses ranging from storage to a senior nutrition center.

The new location is the culmination of decades of work to establish the degree. “Having an MFA program had been our plan for the past 40 years,” said Fine Arts Department Chair Ying Kit Chan.

The program began in fall 2014 with three graduate students and is currently up to four. “We could not accept any more,” Chan said. “We realized we didn’t have enough space.”

“I realized [the studio] was important,” A&S Dean Kimberly Kempf-Leonard said. “In order for faculty to have tenure they need to have creative work and they didn’t have the space to do it.”

Anonymous donors have pledged $500,000 for the development and maintenance of the space if the university matches the sum. Leonard is hesitant at the possibility the institution will buy the entire warehouse. The terms of U of L’s 10-year lease have not been disclosed by the Foundation.

The new facility, which is planned to open spring 2017, will allow the program to develop a new culture.

“For MFA students, it’s invaluable because you get to share space with other students,” said Marie-Elena Ottman, one of the original students of the three-year MFA program. “You get to help each other out, it inspires you to create your art and you’re closer to your professors.”

Originally from Panama, Ottman received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from U of L. She previously focused on ceramics but the MFA has expanded her interest to glass and fiber. Her thesis focuses on immigration.

The studios will be the first prominent U of L location west of Ninth Street. “I’m very proud of that,” said Kempf-Leonard. And if they open on time, Ottman said, “We should be there our last semester.”

Photo by Madison Wurth / The Louisville Cardinal