VAB Banquet Hall Mural

We want to have a local artist paint a mural on our building known as VAB Banquet Hall.  VAB is located at the corner of J.W. Williams Lane and Decatur Street.  We plan our mural to be on the walls of the building facing both streets.

We want our mural to add color and beauty to our property which was the first building renovation in the Carnes School neighborhood.  We are inspired by murals we see in other neighborhoods and by murals in several community gardens located near us on J.W. Williams and Decatur Street.  Our mural we be another symbol of a rebirth of the Carnes School neighborhood.

• Choose the artist
• Agree on a design
• Purchase materials
• Do surface preparations to the building walls
• Artist completes the mural

After I purchased and restored VAB Banquet Hall I would drive around the neighborhood and get discouraged by so many vacant lots and abandoned buildings.    In summer vacant lots would be covered in tall johnson grass and other weeds.  During the night people would dump loads of old tires, roofing shingles and other trash in the midst of the weeds and sometimes covering the sidewalk.  Some buildings were completely abandoned except for homeless people who would take shelter there at night.

Now we feel blessed because within the last 5 years 4 other buildings have been renovated and residents are coming back to the neighborhood.  Eight vacant lots have been cleaned up now and converted to gardens with beds to grow food.  Other formerly vacant lots are now covered in newly planted flowers and trees.  The gardens are even more beautiful because of murals and butterfly sculptures that have been placed there.

Neighbors are getting to know each other through numerous community events and community gardening.  We are proud to say that VAB Banquet Hall has served as the hospitality center for many of these events especially our annual celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King.

This neighborhood is precious ground to me, including the buildings and the people.  This is why I purchased and renovated the abandoned and dilapidated grocery store in 2013 with the vision of VAB Banquet Hall.  It may be why I was initially blind to the terrible conditions in the neighborhood.

There are still vacant lots here to be sure as well as vacant and boarded homes.  Carnes School remains vacant, but a charter school is interested in moving in there.  Now we have progress and that gives us hope.  I believe that the old neighborhood where I enjoyed staying with my grandmother as a child will be saved, existing homes occupied by new families and new homes constructed on vacant lots.

That is our vision of the future for the Carnes School Neighborhood.  This is the reason why we want to paint a beautiful mural on the outside walls of VAB Banquet Hall