Companies discover value in local, original artwork

Before Sportsman’s Warehouse opened in Loveland five years ago, Centerra developer McWhinney Enterprises donated a bronze sculpture of an elk that stands in front of the store. Sportsman’s Warehouse has since opened dozens of other stores with bronze sculptures in front of each one.

A 27-acre park of Zimbabwean sculptures and a cultural center will open later this year at the Promenade Shops at Centerra near Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 34. A modern, stainless steel sculpture is also planned for the MotorPlex at Centerra, a development of car dealerships under way.

In the 2534 development, Stu MacMillan, a partner in Everitt MacMillan Development, hopes to acquire a painting by Cape Cod artist Michele Kennedy to hang in the lobby of the new Bank of Colorado plaza, to break ground in March.

The marriage of business and art in Northern Colorado shows public art isn’t just for galleries and museums anymore.

“It’s a competitive market, and when you do something original and interesting with your building, you set it apart,” MacMillan said.

Quality of life

Developers at McWhinney Enterprises start thinking about incorporating art into their projects from the early planning stages, said Kim Perry, the company’s vice president of community design.

“One of our core values is a strong relationship with the city and its heritage,” Perry said. “Sculpture is an important part of the city of Loveland.”

Loveland has become an artists’ colony for sculptors. The city is home to several sculpture foundries, and it plays host to several sculpture events each year.

McWhinney’s sculpture investments include the McWhinney-Hahn Sculpture Park near the Loveland Chamber of Commerce at I-25 and U.S. 34, aluminum sculptures attached to streetlights along Loveland’s Taft Avenue and sculpture donations to buildings in Centerra.

In the development company’s own Rangeview One office building hang black-and-white photographs of agricultural themes done by a Longmont photographer.

The developer also commissioned local artist Jeff Brooks to do two oil paintings of Northern Colorado landscapes and placed them in the Kroll Factual Data Corp. building, which the company leases from McWhinney.

McWhinney has used various artists, most of them from Northern Colorado, to create art with a variety of themes. The company went outside the region for “Joy,” a sculpture of a mother and child made of Zimbabwean stone, which sits in the roundabout at the Promenade Shops.

Zimbabwean art is also the theme for the Chapungu Sculpture Park, gallery and cultural center scheduled to open at the Promenade Shops this fall.

McWhinney has spent anywhere from a few thousand dollars for small sculptures and paintings to hundreds of thousands of dollars for large sculptures, as is the case with the four-story-high sculpture planned for the roundabout at the MotorPlex.

Perry said such investments are worthwhile.

“I think it’s the age-old question of what adds value and quality of life,” she said. “Art adds variety and interest.”

Making buildings unique

Elsewhere in Northern Colorado, First National Bank of Fort Collins commissioned an artist in 1996 to paint a 90-foot mural depicting local history. The mural graces the wall behind the teller line at the bank’s downtown Fort Collins location, 205 W. Oak St.

Everitt MacMillan Development, owner of the Marriott hotels in Fort Collins, bought several black-and-white photographs by Colorado photographer John Fielder and hung them in the lobby of the Fort Collins Marriott. An original painting of Longs Peak also hangs in the lobby of the Courtyard by Marriott in Fort Collins.

The development company also commissioned an artist to do a contemporary painting of Horsetooth Rock and the mountains. That piece hangs in the lobby of the company’s office building.

MacMillan discovered artist Michele Kennedy on a trip to Cape Cod. He loved her work so much that now he wants to buy one of her paintings, which he says are reminiscent of Van Gogh’s style, for the lobby of the soon-to-be-built Bank of Colorado building at the 25/34 development. MacMillan said he has asked the architects and interior designers to create a space for the artwork.

Kennedy’s piece will probably cost several thousand dollars, MacMillan said.

“There’s definitely a cost to getting original artwork,” he said “But it’s something special that can help make a building a little more unique.”

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