RIO DELL PAINTING THEIR WAY TO A BETTER ECONOMY

A business stimulator project will be unveiled tomorrow at Arts On The Avenue in Rio Dell.

"The ‘Incubator Project’ is a traditional model where a number of businesses go into a building and they share the costs," Adam Dias said.
 
Dias is the President of the Eagle Prairie Arts District and hopes to get future businesses started within the building located at Wildwood Avenue and Columbus Street.
 
“As you become more successful, you can expand and buy up more space,” Dias said. “If we get to a point where we have a list of artists that are trying to get in, we'll just simply go down and get another building."
 
About 13 artists from the area will showcase their work tomorrow in the building, it also houses the towns visitor center.
 
"The Chamber of Commerce has joined in with them,” Rio Dell/Scotia Chamber of Commerce President James Rich said.
 
Rich says the goal is to have every building in the Eel River Valley back to business through this model.
 
"Hopefully we can bring that back, but we don't actually have the money or the finances to do this,” Rich said. “We need assistance."
 
The Chamber has applied for Headwaters Funds to help out on the initial push. 
 
"With Headwaters funding we can get over that first hurdle and on to the second, so that we can fill the whole town," Rich said.
 
He adds that Arts On The Avenue is the first step in making the project known. The event tomorrow is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wildwood Avenue in Rio Dell.