The success of a film camp in downtown Windsor is allowing the Windsor Centre for Film, Digital Media and Creative Arts to move forward with building a permanent home.
A long vacant and very large space in the core of the city will be brought back to it's earlier state and will get significant upgrades.
The centre's chair, Amanda Gellman, says the centre started out five years ago as a pilot project to get people interested in film locally.
She says, since then, t's taken on a life of it's own.
"It's grown into a program that attracts about 200 families a year to the downtown core. We do have nine weeks of camp over the summer as well as an overnight camp, and we run camps all during the fall, Christmas and spring break."
Gellman says Windsor is still the biggest draw for the centre, but over the years, it's expanded, and looking to continue growing.
"About 60% come from Windsor and about 40% from the county, we've also had students from Texas, Toronto, London Ont., all over. We're currently marketing our overnight camp in London and Chatham, Sarnia, and Leamington."
The centre has been in four different locations in the past five years, and Gellman says it's time for a permanent home on Ouellette Ave. near Wyandotte St.
"The new Media Arts Centre will have about 20 offices, two or three store fronts, that will focus on the arts, a restaurant with a stage, a large ballroom, about 6,000 square ft that can be used for fundraising for arts groups as well as production space, dinner theatre."
She says they're planning to launch a fundraising campaign later this year and hope to have more details at that time.
- with files from AM800's Peter Langille