Beyond the Build: A Center for Possibilities
By: Messay Derebe, Executive Director of the Anacostia Arts Center
I remember the first time someone opened a door for me I didn’t even know was there.
I was 12 years old, new to America, and I did not want to go to gym class. My first foray into sports was a spectacular disaster. Lucky for me, being the massive nerd that I was then (and still am), I somehow managed to become a library aid. This embarrassing fact will not surprise anyone who knows me well.
The librarian, whose name I sadly no longer remember, must have sensed that I needed a place to process my thoughts about being in this new place, where I couldn’t speak the language. One day, she gave me a journal which eventually led to my falling in love with writing and even getting a major in literature.
You’re probably wondering why I’m starting a blog about the future of the Anacostia Arts Center with a story about my nerd origin story.
It’s because of what that seemingly small gesture did for the trajectory of my life.
That librarian was one of a long line of people who have come into my life and helped me recognize my own possibilities. People who saw potential where I didn’t, couldn’t. People who made me feel at ease when I felt out of my depth, out of my element, or like I was dreaming too big.
People like that librarian do two profoundly important things without realizing it.
First, they help others see their own value when they can’t see it for themselves. They make others feel seen.
Second, they connect others to the critical tools, opportunities, and resources needed to achieve their dreams and become who they’re capable of becoming…
The challenge is that possibility alone is fragile. Most of us may encounter people who help us see our potential. But eventually we run into the realities of the world. We face obstacles. We encounter closed doors. We discover that talent, hard work or passion (or all three even) are rarely enough.
So often what stands between a person and their dream isn’t effort or ability. It’s access: to capital, to knowledge, to relationships, to affordable space, to someone willing to open a door. Things that the Washington Area Community Investment Fund (WACIF) has been providing for entrepreneurs for nearly four decades.
That’s why the reimagined Anacostia Arts Center under WACIF won’t simply be a place that inspires people. It will be a place that connects people to the resources they need to move their dreams from possibility to reality.
Those two principles — helping people recognize their potential and connecting them to the resources they need to realize it, will be at the heart of the reimagined Anacostia Arts Center.
We want to create a place where people feel seen, valued, trusted, and welcomed. And then we want to connect them to whatever resources they need to pursue their dreams and realize their full potential.
So what does that look like in practice?
Over the months leading up to the Anacostia Arts Center’s reopening in February 2027, I’ll be sharing a series of blogs about what’s to come:
- how we are redesigning and rethinking the HIVE co-working space,
- the ideas shaping the arts and culture programming
- a new hospitality program
- the new retailers and the communities they will build
- the partners who will fill the space and much more
I’ll also share how research, including work conducted by PhD research fellow Dr. Isaac Yeboah, WACIF’s National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) fellow, examining comparable organizations across the country and visits to co-working spaces in several cities including Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, San Antonio, New York, has informed the redesign and offerings of the co-working space.
At its core, the Anacostia Arts Center will become a Center for Possibilities.
Because I know firsthand what access to people, possibility, and resources can do for a life. This building will be a vessel for transformation for anyone who walks through its doors.
And that all begins with hospitality.
It begins with how people are treated the moment they cross the threshold. The world often tells us to close our hands around our gifts, to shrink our dreams, to be practical, and to stay in our lane. To be cautious.
This will be a place that says the opposite.
Dream your dream. Be brave. Take a risk. And…
Not only will WACIF and the AAC cheer you on, but we’ll help you however we can. And if we don’t have the tools or resources you need, we’ll do our best to connect you with someone who does.
One of the first things we’re developing, alongside our partners at Donohoe Hospitality is a hospitality philosophy that clearly articulates how every person will be treated in this space.
What does it look like for an unhoused person walking through our doors to be treated with the same dignity and respect as the CEO of JP Morgan Chase? That isn’t a hypothetical question. It’s something we’ve experienced at the Arts Center when JPMC Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, hosted a conversation about small business and economic development in 2023. Because no one who crosses the doors of the Anacostia Arts Center is more important than anyone else.
But that’s only the beginning. With the reimagined space, we’re asking: What would it look like to intentionally create a place that helps people move from possibility to reality?
The name may stay the same, but much is changing.
The building itself is important. But ultimately, it is only a vessel.
What matters most is what happens inside it, and what becomes possible for the people who walk through its doors.
To follow along on the journey and to read upcoming blogs about the future of the AAC…
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