Help Us Bring Life Back to River Park
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My name's Michelle FitzGerald. Before I started MAKE, I was a public school teacher, working 8-5 and then working more at home. By the time I burned out, I was working 70 hours a week and had little to show for my extra efforts, and no life outside of work. My husband Nat and I had been married 5 years and wanted to start a family but there was no time I could have given a kid. So we waited.
When layoffs hit, I realized there was no loyalty to me or my family. That helped me realize there was no one I would work harder for than myself. So I quit teaching and started making things.
It was a rough start. For the first 6 months, we juggled 7 jobs to stay afloat. Then I decided to start a space where artists and makers could share space and tools to succeed together quicker. Since we didn’t have a makerspace in our town, I thought who better to start one than the folks already working for themselves, us.
I found some business help through SCORE and the ISBDC, made a business plan and found a great place to rent between my two favorite River Park spots, The Well and China House. I called the number on the For Rent sign for this historic building (that many of you remind me used to be the library), and the rest is history. I told my stage crew kids I was done after the spring musical and opened MAKE SOUTH BEND in February of 2015.
MAKE SOUTH BEND took off and has been my baby since. But only a few years in, a 4 foot chunk of masonry fell off my facade from above the storefront. It scared us as it fell during open hours right onto the sidewalk and could have hurt someone. The building owners had neglected the roof issues and warnings to fix it for years. Then I had to live with a hole in the shop ceiling for 4 months during winter.
Feeling uneasy about renewing our lease with negligent landlords, we started looking for options of places to move MAKE SOUTH BEND. But nothing really was better than our historic building in River Park. So we stayed and committed to pestering the building owners to take care of things. Then COVID hit, and so did any hopes of building improvements.
A couple years ago, we finally got the idea in our heads that maybe we could buy the building and commit to being the building owners this property deserved. We were the anchor tenants after all. So we called some small scale developer friends and asked what we could do. With their help, we dreamt of owning the building and renovating it back to full capacity with various sized spaces to make it easier for River Park businesses to start.
We made an offer to buy the building in the fall of 2021, and they accepted. Then that Christmas we found out we were pregnant. By the time summer came around we got the keys to our building and then brought a sweet baby girl home just a month after closing (and a month before our 8th Rebel Art Fest).
We were and still are committed to making River Park a better place to start a new businesses and find support and success as creatives. But the first few years of owning a neglected historic building and having a baby both involve a lot of foundational but rather invisible work. We spent all our extra time and money on fixing the foundation around the building, repairing termite damage to subfloor, replacing the roof over China House, repairing masonry and replacing windows and completely rebuilding storefronts that needed it.
Now just over this past year we finally got to renovating the inside of four units to add another full retail space, House Wins is there now. We fixed a long abandoned storefront and replaced all the mechanicals so Beauty Bull Vintage could have a great new space. We divided another space to make room for 3 small business: a recording studio, a music shop, and a barber. That project is wrapping up now, but we have one more to go.
Right next to MAKE, we are currently framing out 4 small office/studios for micro businesses to move in and creating a flexible event space with cold prep kitchen that we will use for music and art shows, cooking classes, event rentals and more. As with any renovation project, especially one on a historic building, there have been many surprises and delays. And that’s not even related to raising our first kid while working for ourselves.
We have poured all our extra time and savings into this building, and are so close we can taste it. I tell our kid Ellie, who is almost 3 yrs old that this is her inheritance. It’s all she’s gonna get because it’s all we’ve got. We’re determined to see our dream completed and have just a little more time to spend with our daughter once it’s done. And to see our bit of River Park come back to life with a full and thriving small business center is just the cherry on top.
We have already seen a number of small businesses grow out of the studio spaces at MAKE over the years. Because we offered small, affordable studios, local creatives found it a good place to start out (shout out to Hanah Tepe Photography and Gage Goods). We knew that more people would feel confident about trying their business ideas if they had spaces to fit their startup needs. And we are so close to completing this project.
We just need some help to push us over the finish line. And as our kiddo turns 3 in just a few weeks and the project is already behind nine months from our original goals, we wanted to ask if you, our beloved neighbors, friends and community members, would help us out. Can you help some weird, creative art studio and vintage building owners out? We’d really appreciate it, and so would Ellie.
Whether you can support MAKE by taking a class, getting a membership (did you know we have 24/7 access), or buying a gift card, every little bit helps. We could also use your help if you’re handy. To cross the finish line without going into too much more debt, we could have a few barn-raising type work days with drywall and paint. We’ve done it before.
Or you can donate directly to help us pay for the professional help we still need to get to the end with all the inspections passed. As the project has experienced delay after delay, so has our income. Until we get this done, we’re eating costs each month. It is a huge sacrifice to take on an endeavor such as this while raising our toddler to know and love this place as much as we do. We hope our community sees that and knows where our heart is, right here in River Park.
Even if you can only share this post, that would mean the world to us.
Thank you so much,
Michelle, Nat and Ellie FitzGerald
Organizer
Nathaniel FitzGerald
Organizer
South Bend, IN