AUSTIN, Texas — Bar and music venue owners in the Red River Cultural District are celebrating this week after they finally received long-anticipated funding from the city of Austin.
The Austin City Council approved a year-long $150,000 contract that will help preserve the history and culture of the area.
“I’m very pleased to see that move forward and want to ensure that the city is doing what we can to support our live music venues,” Austin City Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said. “Certainly, it’s a huge part of our city’s fabric and they need more support.”
For about a year, the Red River Cultural District nonprofit organization has been trying to get city funding. The organization actually started back in 2015 to make sure this important part of town wouldn’t be forgotten.
“Several music venues in the Red River area were closing due to unaffordable rents, increased taxes and just general displacement of music venues and cultural spaces,” said Nicole Klepadlo, the interim executive director of the Red River Cultural District.
The year-long contract to preserve the district is split up into a few major projects:
- Storytelling and history project: $19,000
- Economic analysis: $15,000
- Free Week Music and Arts Festival: $50,000
- Hot Summer Nights Music and Arts Festival: $50,000
- Music heritage and cultural preservation information: $16,000
The Red River Cultural District said it is excited to get started on the storytelling project about the artistic and musical heritage of the district.
“The Cultural District’s music roots date back as far back as the ’70s,” Klepadlo said. “We have documented music heritage, just talking through the days of Stevie Ray Vaughan or Janis Joplin playing at spaces along the Red River Cultural District.”
The group said the economic analysis will provide useful data points for grant applications or to give to donors and sponsors.
“That’s not only an asset just for our cultural district, that’s also an asset that will drive, potentially, tourism to Austin. So we see this as being two projects that will definitely serve the benefit of the greater community as well,” Klepedlo said.
For both of those projects, the group is hoping to have some sort of event or exhibit where it presents the history project and the economic analysis results. The group is hoping to launch that during its Hot Summer Nights festival in July.
Overall, the Red River Cultural District is just glad that with all of the new construction and updates to Austin’s downtown area, the city is still deciding to preserve this slice of music history.
“It’s not only just a space for, you know, small local businesses and music venues,” Klepadlo said. “It is really kind of that heartbeat that feeds into kind of our moniker as the ‘Live Music Capital of the World.'”
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