Like a palette with an array of colorful pigment ready to express a painter's inspiration, the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center is about to change the West Seattle arts scene.

The grand opening of the four-story facility is planned for Feb. 24.

The new center used to be the old Cooper Elementary School near the northern end of Delridge Way Southwest. Construction workers have been busy for months turning the building's classrooms into 36 live-in art studios. All of the units have been rented and painters, sculptors, even a trapeze artist are all moving in to live and work there.

Workers installed a small, open kitchen and an enclosed bathroom along one wall in each classroom. The blackboards and cabinetry were left intact in the new residential units, which range in size from 450 to 1,400 square feet, said Randy Engstrom, director of the new arts center.

Rooms in the oldest part of the building, which was built in 1917, have floors of mahogany and other now-exotic woods, Engstrom said. Floors in the part built in 1929 have floors of maple and oak.

The fourth floor of old Cooper School held ventilation equipment but otherwise was just a large attic. That space has been filled with more artist lofts, with skylights and windows that look out to the side of Pigeon Hill.

The artists lofts are wired for Internet access and the ground floor of the building has wireless connections. There are a couple of coin-operated laundry rooms too.

While the upper three floors of the school will serve as housing and work space for artists, the ground floor has been remodeled for organizations. Twelfth Night Productions and Theatre Puget Sound will use the school's auditorium, which will be called the Thelma Dewitty Theater. The new performance space is named in honor of Seattle's first black public school teacher, who began her career at Cooper School in 1947.

The original wooden molding around the stage is intact but the stage has been expanded and new retractable rows of theater seats are being installed to seat 155 people. When the theater seats are put away, tables and chairs can be arranged in the audience area for a larger crowd.

A new tech booth has been built at the rear of the new theater to house controls to the new sound and lighting systems along with video projection equipment.

Cooper School's old gymnasium had springs beneath its wooden floor for dancing, said Jordan Howland, manager of the cultural arts center. The springs were in good shape so they were left in place and are well-suited for their new life putting bounce in the cultural arts center's new dance studio. Pacific Northwest Ballet's Discover Dance program will use that space as well as West Seattle's own Phffft! Dance Theatre. Even belly dancing classes are planned there.

Next to the dance studio is a new digital recording studio, with an isolation booth and engineering room.

Since the isolation booth is quite small, recordings of music from large bands or orchestras can be done in the adjacent dance studio, which has good acoustics, Engstrom said.

Jack Straw Productions, a nonprofit organization devoted to audio art, will be reside in the new center too.

The largest tenant in the new Youngstown Cultural Arts Center will be Arts Corps, a nonprofit arts education program that offers free music, dance, drama and visual arts classes after school. Like some of the other programs at the new facility, it's for youngsters from low-income families or who are considered “at risk.”

Another arts program for youth called the Power of Hope uses a multigenerational approach to the arts. It will be housed at the Youngstown Center too.

The Seattle Symphony will base its ACCESS Project in the Youngstown Center. The program tries to build interest in classical and other music among Seattle's Asian, Latino and black communities.

Another tenant will be the Southwest Interagency Academy, an alternative school program for middle and high school students. It will have a computer lab, which will be used in the evenings for adult classes, Engstrom said.

Some of the tenants of the new facility are arts-related organizations. The West Seattle-based Nature Consortium, which sponsors the annual Art-in-Nature Festival, will move into a first-floor office Feb. 1.

Motorists used to enter the parking lot from Oregon Street on the south side of the building. That entry is being closed and a new driveway was cut at the north end of the building. The new entrance is off of Delridge Way and leads up to the north parking lot. That's also the driveway tenants will use to drive behind the building to the artists' parking by the southeast corner of the building.

There are 54 parking spaces in the north lot and 19 spaces near the southeast corner for building tenants, plus two handicap parking spaces.

The school building was closed by Seattle Public Schools in 1989 because it no longer met seismic requirements. A new Cooper Elementary School was built atop Pigeon Point.

In the early 1990s as Delridge residents participated in the citywide neighborhood planning process, they recommended turning the closed school into a new center for arts and culture.

The Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association took hold of the project and, like many of its other housing developments in Delridge, the nonprofit organization continues to improve the neighborhood.

Total cost of the renovation project is $11.9 million, said Paul Fischburg, executive director of the Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association. That includes purchase of the property, architect fees and other expenses in addition to construction costs.

“We just think it's a tremendous project,” said Michael Killoren, director of the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs.

The Youngstown Cultural Arts Center will soon become a cultural destination, he predicted. One of its strengths is the unusual combination of performance artists and visual artists living as well as working in the same facility.

The project also preserves a historic building by bringing creative vitality into a neighborhood, he said.

“It will create a whole new synergy, just like ArtsWest put West Seattle on the cultural map,” Killoren said.

Such facilities also stimulate economic development, he said. ArtsWest Gallery and Playhouse stirred up nightlife in the Junction, he said.

“It is absolutely catalytic,” Killoren said.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at HYPERLINK "tstclair@westseattleherald.com" tstclair@westseattleherald.com or 932-0300.