Some UMass arts students appear headed for Bed Bath & Beyond

DARTMOUTH — Word among some UMD art students packing up their stuff from the Star Store in downtown New Bedford over the weekend was that their studios were being moved to somewhere near the Home Depot on State Road in North Dartmouth, less than 2 miles from the main campus. Two students decided to find out where.

Fallon Navarro, a graduate student in ceramics, and another student headed out in Navarro’s Honda CRV on Saturday morning, following two white A. Walecka & Son moving vans that had been loading up with art work and studio gear since the university announced two weeks ago that they were closing the New Bedford location of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. The students lost the trucks a few blocks from the Star Store, but picked up the trail in Dartmouth, finding them parked for unloading at, of all places, a defunct Bed Bath & Beyond store in Dartmouth Towne Center.

The space with a row of big south-facing windows appears to be one of five new homes for CVPA programs announced by the university on Monday afternoon. The two announcements — one by CVPA Dean Lawrence Jenkens, one by UMass Chancellor Mark Fuller — mention the Towne Center, not the specific storefront. But at least one member of the university facilities department, who would not provide their name, was inside the Bed Bath & Beyond store doing some work on Monday afternoon.

Navarro was not happy and wondered whether the new spot would have the specialized ceramics equipment needed to do the work she has to complete for her master’s in fine arts this spring.

“It’s horrible,” said Navarro. “We thought we were going to be kept in New Bedford. We definitely didn’t expect a strip mall in Dartmouth.”

The university announcement does not go into much detail, and a university spokesperson declined to respond to a request for comment.

The announcement says that four elements of the CVPA would be moved to different spots on the main university campus.

Fashion design is to move to the Marketplace North meeting room and adjacent space that was being renovated; undergraduate ceramics will be taught in existing CVPA studios; the Textile Building will provide conventional classroom space. The announcements say that the Art Education program and space for Interior Architecture and Design majors will be housed in “customized modular classrooms that we expect to have up and running by mid-October,” but it is not clear where those activities will be conducted until then.

The graduate ceramics students, along with students working in textiles and jewelry and metals are to be accommodated in what is described as a “large, empty storefront space in the Dartmouth Towne Center,” to be occupied under a “short-term lease.”

It is not clear from either the notice that Jenkens sent to students or the announcement Fuller sent to media outlets how long any of these arrangements are expected to last.

Ruth Douzinas, an engineer whose pursuit of a master of fine arts in ceramics is part of a planned midlife career change, said she would not be deterred. She said she’s making arrangements to use kilns in New York, where she lives when she’s not in New Bedford taking classes.

“I can make the best of a bad situation,” she said, referring to the sudden announcement of the move out of New Bedford on Aug. 14 and the politics that appear to be involved as “a dark comedy.”

State legislators, university officials and New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell have been offering varying versions of how this happened and who is responsible.

For more than 20 years, the university has occupied the Star Store building under a rent-to-own arrangement with the owner, developer Paul Downey of Star Store Holdings, LLC. When the time to stop renting and start owning came, however, the deal was not made. The money to continue renting the space was not included in the state budget made final on Aug. 9. Email Arthur Hirsch at [email protected].

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