Video: Arts Center Coming to Clay Co.

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WEST POINT, Miss. (WCBI) — The West Point/Clay County Arts Council will soon have a place to call home.

The non-profit group is moving into a new building, which members say will bring in more traffic downtown.

It won’t be long before workers are done with West Point’s Louise Campbell Center for the Arts.

Construction started in February to renovate the old McClure Furniture building.

“We’ve been a very active arts council for a long time. We just haven’t had a place to call home,” said Scott Reed, Arts Council president.

The Arts Council can now do all its events in one spot instead of having to use a church fellowship hall, or the library.

“We don’t have any place to store things, and then we have so many good ideas that we want to do, and we just don’t have a place to do them, and now we will,” said Louise Campbell, Arts Council board member.

Arts Council members say having their own building also allows them to put on more activities – like art exhibits for local and regional artists.

“We hope to have like ballroom dance lessons, a little theater. We’ve got a stage over here that we can use,” Campbell said.

West Point Mayor Robbie Robinson says they hope to be finished with construction by the end of the month.

“We will not have it open for Prairie Arts [Festival],” Robinson said. “We want to use it as a teaser. We want thousands of people who will come to West Point to see this building, and to be curious.”

The Arts Council, and local business owners like Reed, say having an arts center is a big asset for West Point. He says the arts bring people together.

“We hope that over a week-long event, or something like that, it will definitely bring people downtown. That’ll help our local businesses, restaurants, gas stations,” Reed said.

A grand opening and building dedication is planned for sometime in September.

Mayor Robinson tells WCBI the renovations cost $460,000. He says they’re being funded through bonds and tourism tax dollars.