We did it! (With your help!)

Film stills curtesy of filmmakers Alex Burnett and Christina Sanders (film located on our home page).

A message from the Lincoln Street Center for the Arts (LSCA)

Celebration, Thank You and Farewell!

We are excited to finally be able to publicly share a successful completion to our campaign to save Lincoln Street Center, Rockland’s historic High School, and Maine’s largest artist community—preserving 40 artist studios and one of the oldest theaters in the country.

Our organization, Lincoln Street Center for the Arts (LSCA) was founded in the spring of 2023 by artist tenant and community organizer Amy Files, motivated by the knowledge that the privately-owned building was at imminent risk of being lost. Our objective was to build a pathway for future ownership of the building by a nonprofit whose mission would ensure that this vital hub for working artists remain active, accessible, and permanently dedicated to public use.

One of the first steps we took was to establish a relationship with Waterfall Arts in Belfast, as our fiscal sponsor, seeing the potential for a future partnership.

Over the past three years our board members, tenants and community supporters have engaged in hundreds of conversations with community leaders, philanthropists, and local artists—creating awareness of the need for new building ownership to preserve affordable studio space for working artists as well as well as protecting one of the oldest theaters in the country.

In early 2025, after being informed that the building was under contract and slated to be turned into housing, LSCA Board Chair, Amy Files met with Lake City Holdings and Developers Collaborative to ask that they reconsider. Thanks to the generosity of these local developers, Files was able to convince them to give LSCA a chance to purchase the building, leading to an intense campaign to quickly raise $1.5 million.

It was during this public campaign in the summer of 2025 that this hard work began to pay off. The dots were beginning to connect—and Waterfall Arts began talks with prospective donors, leading to what ultimately came together as a solution: Waterfall Arts in Belfast agreed to take over the building as the new owner with the generous assistance of private donors, including lead donor, the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation.

“When I first heard about the need to secure funding for this project in such a short amount of time, I thought it was both a worthwhile cause and an almost impossible feat to pull off. But I also recognized that if anyone was capable of building community awareness and interest in this project, it was Amy Files. And her hard work paid off! We are so pleased with the outcome to preserve this building for the Rockland artist community, and grateful to Waterfall Arts.”
—Tom Luttrell, Rockland City Manager.

In addition to extending gratitude to Kim Fleming at Waterfall Arts, their board, and the major donors who made this possible—Lincoln Street Center for the Arts would like to celebrate and thank all of the community members, city leaders, artists and tenants who rallied together to contribute to this exciting outcome, including the individual donors who, via LSCA, collectively pledged nearly $100,000 to the campaign to purchase the building.

“What we set out to do almost three years ago felt next to impossible. However, the combination of what this historic landmark means to the community and the artists it supports, along with the magnetic allure of possibility that it represents, were so powerful that this fueled a natural and unstoppable spark which helped to engage many parties. We really couldn’t have asked for a better result.” —Amy Files, LSCA Board Chair

With our original mission now complete, Lincoln Street Center for the Arts will officially dissolve as an organization. All remaining funds will be transferred to Waterfall Arts for use towards the Lincoln Street Center.

As a final parting message, LSCA would like to recognize a few of the many individuals who dedicated their time and energy to making this effort a success:

LSCA board members
Whitney Files, Kathleen Florance, and Sarah Szwajkos
Fundraising Committee member
Nina Poole
LSCA Advisory Board members
Jo Dondis, Jim Grace, Carole Martin, Donna McNeil, and Ken Stein
Rockland City Councilors
with a special thank you to Adam Lachman
Lincoln Street Center Building Manager
Luke Olsen
ALL of the artists at Lincoln Street Center(!)
and filmmakers
Alex Burnett and Christina Sanders

With so much gratitude,
The Lincoln Street Center for the Arts Board

Left to right:
Whitney Files (LSCA Board), Sarah Szwajkos (LSCA Board), Amy Files (LSCA Board), Nina Poole (Fundraising Committee), Kathleen Florance (LSCA Board)