Dunwoody’s Spruill Center for the Arts is delaying its pandemic reopening to June 21, “and only then on a limited basis,” said CEO Alan Mothner in an email to supporters.
The Spruill Center previously aimed to reopen its classes at 5339 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road on May 18, which Mothner said is the first day allowed by the city, which owns the facility. However, the Spruill Center team decided “we are not year ready to safely reopen” on that date, Mothner wrote.
Factors included the need for supplies, formalizing policies and procedures, and the “general wariness among staff, teachers and students,” he wrote.
A test reopening “on a smaller scale” might happen before June 21, he wrote.
“We feel that this decision is in the best interest of Spruill as we take a long-term view of the organization and our extended Spruill family of instructors and students in light of the ever-changing landscape of this pandemic,” Mothner wrote. “An additional month of preparation to buy us security and peace of mind will go a long way towards a more successful emergence from all of this.”
The Spruill Center is among the arts organizations whose budgets have been hit hard by the pandemic closures. It is currently offering new or renewed memberships for 14 months for the standard annual rate. For more information, see its website here.
The Spruill Center is one of the organizations involved in a campaign to sell yard-sign versions of the local “Everything Will Be OK” mural as a fundraiser for out-of-work artists and art teachers.