Affordable Ypsilanti starts to attract art galleries

Making a buck as an artist is easier when rents are lower. That tried-and-true stratefy is playing out in Ypsilanti where a number of artists are taking advantage of the city’s cheaper cost of living to open art galleries.

Find a walkable downtown with cheap retail space and it’s not long before an art gallery or two pops up. That’s the case in Ypsilanti as the resurgent college town’s cheap prices are attracting artists to set up shop in the city’s center.

 

Excerpt:

 

Although Leslie and David Austin’s art gallery in Petoskey was doing well, they realized that most of their clients spent most of the year in the southern part of the state, and they wanted to monopolize on that. So they settled on a space in downtown Ypsilanti, moved down here, and opened the What Is That gallery in early February.

 

The couple renovated a large space formerly occupied by a hair-braiding business at Michigan AvenueWashington Street. They cleaned up debris, knocked out walls, ripped up carpet, and did a lot of painting. and

 

The Austins said that, although they checked out locations in Ann Arbor, they settled on their Michigan Avenue location in downtown Ypsilanti for one main reason: price.

 

Read the rest of the story here.

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