Emerging Artists

About a year-and-a-half ago, Debbie Sinex of BEULAH INVESTMENTS LLC started advertising a property she owned, 310 2nd St SW, Roanoke, VA, USA for lease. Then about eight months ago, because the property was still vacant, Debbie contacted me to see if I would be interested in using the space for some type of community-building venture, maybe as an art gallery or something of a similar nature.

I came up with the idea of creating a museum, the “Car Less Brit Museum”, to document the Car Less Brit Experiment (an experiment about living without a car within Roanoke city limits) and anything else of interest related to the multiplying bike culture of Roanoke.

Debbie agreed to a six month lease for this project - rent free - I just covered the utilities and liability insurance.

During the course of the Car Less Brit Museum, Stratton Delany of Keirin Culture, a bicycle frame design business, visited the museum. He had previously seen the “For Rent” sign in the window, but,

“unless the museum had been there and I had been able to go inside and get a feel for a functioning business inside the space I would not have taken much notice of the For Rent sign.”

After chatting with Stratton about the space and putting him in touch with the owner of the building, Stratton has decided to rent the space as a storefront for Keirin Culture.

Stratton moved to Roanoke from Richmond VA a year or 2 ago and conducts most of his business on-line. However, having a downtown storefront to his business will greatly increase his business profile in this region.

In addition, Stratton plans to use this downtown space as a gallery for his bike frames and as a location to screen bike related films and documentaries and to offer a place for bikers from the region, and those passing through, to relax, have a coffee and engage with other local bikers.

This is a happy, simple and true story. What a great thing it would be if owners of the several other empty storefronts in downtown Roanoke took note of this tale of 310 2nd St SW, and followed suit in a similar fashion…