GALLERY MOVING TO NEW LOCATION

Gallery 100 and the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts, located for the past 7 1/2 years in the bank building at 100 Broadway, will move at the end of the month to temporary lodgings on Mount Auburn Road.

The new address will be 1707 Mount Auburn Road, an office building which also houses the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The arts organization is moving because Boatmen's Bank, which owns the building at 100 Broadway, needs the gallery space for storage.

The bank has been collecting only $250 per month in rent from the gallery, an amount which includes utilities. Since giving the arts council notice in May, the bank has charged no rent, allowing the nonprofit to build up its reserves.

The rent on Mount Auburn Road is nearly double the arts council's current rent, and for two-thirds less floor space.

Because of its limited space, the gallery's new home is viewed only as a temporary solution.

"This will be until something else comes along," said Beverly Strohmeyer, the arts council's executive director. The gallery is paying rent on a month-to-month basis.

"We were wishing something more permanent were available so we'd only have to move once," added Ann Swanson, who chairs the council's board of directors.

The arts council expects higher rent wherever it ends up. It has enough money to pay rent through June, when its grant from the Missouri Council on the Arts expires.

The arts council will apply for a larger grant next year, Strohmeyer said, but added, "I don't know that we will get any increased funding."

Last year's budget for the arts council was slightly less than $100,000.

The arts council has had discussions with the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation about becoming a tenant at St. Vincent's Seminary should the foundation succeed in buying the century-and-a-half-year-old building.

The foundation wants to turn the structure into a civil war interpretive center. "If it comes about it would be more of a cultural space," Strohmeyer said. "...We would anticipate holding an arts festival there."

The foundation has made an offer on the seminary. There has been speculation that the Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming Co. might help the foundation with the purchase if the city chooses the company as its gambling vendor.

With its theater, large gallery-sized library, offices, classrooms and chapel, the seminary is nearly an ideal location for the arts council, Strohmeyer and Swanson agreed.

"They are interested in us and we are interested in them," Swanson said of the foundation.

If the seminary doesn't work out as a future home, Strohmeyer said, "We'll start a capital fund drive to get our own facility."

At various times since it was founded as the Christian Arts Council in 1961, the organization has occupied space in two different buildings on Themis Street, at the old fire station and at the Concord Theatre among other locations.

Strohmeyer said the gallery has thrived at its Broadway location. "It has helped the arts council be more visible in the community. People are used to us being here. There are people who come every month for our openings."

The gallery currently is showing an exhibit by Cobden, Ill., artist Lee Spalt. Its next exhibit, by St. Louisan John Stoeckley, will open Jan. 9 at the new location.

Exhibits already are booked through December 1994.