Sunday, August 17, 2008

Arrowmont in Trouble

Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts is in danger of loosing its land. If you care about the arts and crafts community and education, please read this post! Even if you have never been to Arrowmont, you should understand the importance of preserving an institution that promotes education in the art and craft field.

The Pi Beta Phi fraternity is currently in negotiations with developers to sell the property that Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts resides on. This will have an incredible impact on the school. The property and many of the buildings are not owned by Arrowmont but rather leased to them by the fraternity.There is talk of the developers wanting to use the property to build new condos and an indoor water park.

Please check the following link to see the fraternity's statement.

Arrowmont posted an official statement on their website today as well. http://www.arrowmont.org/arrowmontnews.html

If you want to help save Arrowmont, you can sign a petition that states the following...
"The Pi Beta Phi Fraternity, specifically the seven person Grand Council, has started negotiations to sell and develop the property they have owned and used for education since 1912 and has been home to the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts since 1968. According to Emily Tarr, Grand president of the fraternity, "this development is another opportunity to benefit the community." Mrs Tarr is completely wrong. The development of the Arrowmont property will do nothing to benefit Gatlinburg. Building more tourist traps of excess consumption and greed is of no advantage to the community. Please sign this petition to send a message to Mrs. Tarr and the other members of the Pi Phi Grand Council that you do not support this development and you want to save Arrowmont!"

2 comments:

Barb said...

Oh my god! I can't believe it.....that is horrible! I'll be signing that petition!

Unknown said...

You can find news on the development here:
www.savearrowmont.wordpress.com