NEW BEDFORD — The UMass Dartmouth art college departure from downtown New Bedford looks like a done deal, but students are planning a rally outside their former home at the Star Store building on Thursday in the hope that there is some way to reverse course.
Students of the College of Visual and Performing Arts and their allies at the university have been contacting potential speakers and mustering supporters in an effort to gather a crowd at 5:30 p.m. outside the four-story former department store at Union and Purchase Streets.
“People are angry, people are frustrated, people are hurt and people care,” said AJ Vincelli, a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering and president of the graduate student union, who is helping organize the gathering. “So I do hope people show up.”
Vincelli said she hopes to see a crowd of 150, a small share of the nearly 5,000 people who as of Wednesday afternoon had signed a petition posted Aug. 15 at change.org calling on, well, somebody, to, as the petition says, “help us save the Star Store for the students and the entire New Bedford community!”
So far, everyone in authority at the state and local level has decried the move that the university announced on Aug. 14, and yet, it has happened.
Art work, supplies, furniture have all been either moved out of the Star Store to new locations or tossed out. The university on Monday announced a plan to move CVPA classrooms and studios to five spaces in Dartmouth: four on the main campus, one at an empty store space in the Dartmouth Towne Center on State Road.
Matthew Napoli, a graduate teaching fellow in painting, said he checked out the Towne Center location — site of a defunct Bed Bath & Beyond — and allows that “the space definitely has potential, that is, if you have time” to get it set up in time for the start of classes on Sept. 6. It’s hard to imagine how that could be done, he said.
“Nobody can imagine it,” he said.
Other students have expressed disgust or a sense of resignation about the move from the quarters in a historic downtown building to a suburban strip mall.
Napoli has agreed to speak at the rally on Thursday, but as of Wednesday afternoon he was the only confirmed speaker of those who have been invited, Vincelli said. The list includes members of the CVPA faculty, and state Sen. Mark Montigny, who was instrumental in bringing the art campus to New Bedford more than 20 years ago under a lease-to-own arrangement with the building owner, a local developer.
The original 20-year lease that expired in 2021 included an option for the university to acquire the building for $1. That deal was never made, and the money to continue renting the building, which had been between $2.3 and $2.7 million each year, was not included in the current state budget that was made final on Aug. 9.
The UMass Dartmouth chancellor’s office has said the $50 million to $75 million in “deferred maintenance” on the building was too much. All parties involved have offered varying versions of the story, and who is responsible.
In honor of the purchase option that was never consummated, students may bring to the rally a gigantic $1 bill that was created years ago as a drawing class exercise. Stored at the main campus in Dartmouth, the bill measures 8-by-20 feet, presenting a transportation challenge, said Fallon Navarro, a graduate student in ceramics.
“We’re trying to figure out how to get it here,” she said.
The bill, the crowd, the speeches — it’s all an effort to get the attention of the public, and also Gov. Maura Healey, who students hope can somehow step in to keep the CVPA in New Bedford, Vincelli said. It’s not clear what Healey can do.
Montigny in a letter sent last week called on Gov. Healey to intervene, although he did not spell out how she would do that.
Montigny’s office has not responded to a request for comment on his possible attendance at the rally or how the governor might intervene. Karissa Hand, a spokeswoman for Healey, said “we have received Senator Montigny’s letter and are aware of the concerns raised by the community.”
The presence of the CVPA at the Star Store, with more than 100 students and faculty members, has been seen as a boost for downtown New Bedford business and arts activity.
Email Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org.
Thank you to our sponsors
Founding benefactors: Joan and Irwin Jacobs fund of the Jewish Community Foundation, Mary and Jim Ottaway
Learn more about our community of individual donors
For questions about donations, contact The Light at giving@newbedfordlight.org.
