🔒Real Art Ways hosts ceremonial groundbreaking on long-planned $24M Hartford expansion

Real Art Ways on Thursday held a ceremonial groundbreaking for a major expansion of its Parkville arts center, marking a milestone in a yearslong planning and financing effort to overhaul and enlarge its longtime home at 56 Arbor St. Local and state officials — including Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, House Speaker Matt Ritter and Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam — joined Executive Director Will K. Wilkins and Board Chair Yedalis Ruiz for the event. The project will significantly expand the arts organization’s footprint. Plans call for four movie screens, up from the single screen currently in use, as well as a new live-performance venue for theater, concerts and other programming. The expansion also includes classrooms and workshop areas, renovated galleries and a full-service café. Construction is expected to begin in February 2026.

The expansion builds on a plan Real Art Ways has been advancing for several years to modernize its space inside a 1917 former Underwood Typewriter manufacturing building. The nonprofit purchased the 86,313-square-foot property for $4 million in late 2021 through a for-profit entity created to take advantage of federal historic tax credits. That structure ultimately changed as the organization reworked its financing, transferring ownership back to the nonprofit in December 2024 and moving forward without federal historic credits or new markets credits. A successful fundraising effort — including state Bond Commission support and federal appropriations secured by Connecticut’s Congressional delegation — helped funding close the gap. As of late 2025, Real Art Ways reported raising $22 million toward a $24 million capital campaign.