“A musician wishing to perform in or around Traverse City faces a tough choice. On one hand, they can book a full-size dedicated performance venue, and face the daunting prospect of losing money on anything short of a full house. For most emerging and mid-career musicians, this is not even an option. Or, they can play one of dozens of local bars, and know that they will be most likely playing to a loud and mostly disinterested crowd. There are a few other options, sure: a house concert, maybe, or renting out a space designed for something else, like a church basement.
What if there were another choice? A “missing middle” performance space designed by and for musicians, with the sound, lights, acoustics, green room, and ticketing all designed with only one thing in mind: that intimate, powerful moment of connection between artist, crowd, and music.
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Welcome to The Alluvion
Why add a performance space to the commongrounds co-op?
The Alluvion space serves as a “missing middle” for both local and traveling musicians—smaller (and so easier to fill) than the Opera House or Milliken, but not a loud bar. With support from May Erlewine and Andrew Lutes and their national musical connections, and our shared vision of an artist-centered, deeply intimate, beautiful and acoustically amazing experience, we expect to create something that quickly earns a reputation well outside of our region for excellence in the arts. We want to be the venue that artists make pilgrimages to.
It also acts as a catalyst for the arts community in Traverse City and the larger region. In much the way that Trattoria Stella’s standard for excellence helped drive a decade of food and farm opportunities around the region, and put Traverse City on a national foodie map, we hope this project will help drive a new wave of local arts investment and opportunity.
It also serves as a unique and valuable anchor to 8th Street, helping to drive development in that corridor toward walkable, bikeable, community-centered businesses that still know how to attract a crowd.
It sets a model for a very new, very exciting model of community ownership and investment, taking the traditional developer out of the picture and setting the tone for local, community-driven development. The Boardman River has a voice on the board!
Is this just for music?
Not at all. If you love the arts, this space will serve you. As outlined in the executive summary, this space will serve artists and audiences in a broad spectrum.
As the central core of Commongrounds’ arts mission, The Alluvion is a state-of-the-art venue poised to serve our region’s original music, theater, dance, and wellness communities through up-close, intentional experiences and the deep interaction of music, movement, written and spoken word, multimedia art, and integrated technology.
With construction underway , Commongrounds, Jeff Haas and Crosshatch are currently working with other partner organizations such as Parallel 45, Interlochen Center for the Arts, TC Dance Project, Groundwork Center, and more, to build out a rich calendar of concert series, storytelling series, residencies, workshops, classes, and exhibitions—with virtual options for participation available for nearly every use of space.
Our collaborative mission is to build a compassionate original thought community that nurtures and supports creators and organizations committed to service and social responsibility through the arts. Through stakeholder engagement and programming partnerships, we use this venue to lower the barrier of participation in the performing arts for youth, elders, the BIPOC communities, and members of our regional arts community-at-large—both patrons and creators—by providing a cultivated place and culture where the energy resonates with each moment, where safety and trust are paramount, where play is standard, and where innovation and connection are nurtured.