The Gold Dust, to be built on North First Street near Orange Street by HomeWORD next summer, has more twists than one.

First, 1 percent of its construction budget is being spent on art for the outside of the building. Made by local artists Jennifer Reifsneider and Kevin Corra, the art will grace the front of the building and its frontage along Orange Street.

Second, the Gold Dust will provide both living and working space, side-by-side, for 18 households. The apartments, mostly one- and two-bedrooms and some three-bedrooms, will each work in conjunction with a space that can function as an office, a garage or a studio. Rents will be $200 to $400 a month, and the project developers at HomeWORD envision the Gold Dust with a high percentage of resident artists.

The Gold Dust could spark a near-Northside renaissance as Missoula's new Soho, after the avant garde New York neighborhood, said Susan Estep, a Missoula financial consultant who is board president of HomeWORD.

"We want it to be a model," she said. "And we want to break the model of what we call in New York, 'the projects.' "

People who are the traditional beneficiaries of affordable housing - people who earn low wages, single parents, part-time workers - could live at the Gold Dust. The potential artists' component and the public art for the building is something new for Missoula, Estep said.

"It's helping a different kind of target audience," she said. "It's that other group that is not the 'low-income' target."

Estep's employer, Salomon Smith Barney, gave $7,500, and HomeWORD raised $8,000 from individuals. HomeWORD's partners in the public art part of the development are the Art Museum of Missoula, the architectural firm of MacArthur, Means and Wells and the Northside neighborhood.

Earmarking 1 percent of the project's $1.8 million construction budget is modeled after the state and federal percent-for-art mandates. It's a first for HomeWORD, said art project coordinator Kay Grissom-Kiely, who is fund-raising and communications manager at HomeWORD.

"Dedicating 1 percent of the budget was a big deal," she said. "It's a new model for construction, and we hope others follow the model."

The idea, she said, came from the neighborhood. Residents expressed a wish for public art at a design meeting about two years ago.

"People from the Northside were saying, 'We would really like to have some public art here to bridge the two communities, bring people over,' " she said. "The whole concept grew out of a community need."

The art museum helped steer the process, she said, through a workshop about how to make a public art proposal and how to address public art concerns. After the first deadline in early October, 17 proposals came to vie for the final spots.

A selection committee of art professionals, residents, the architects and developers, chose Corra and Reifsneider. Corra is a blacksmith artist who fashioned a large-scale metal fence in six 9-foot panels. They incorporate symbols of nature as well as symbols that are important to the neighborhood, Grissom-Kiely said.

"And blacksmithing is such a historical art form," she said.

Reifsneider is a conceptual artist who will incorporate wish, memory and belief into her art. After collecting those sentiments from area residents, she will use them in glass bricks set into the cement in front of the building. They'll be lit from below at night and preserve the thoughts of this generation of residents.

"They'll have a mark on this art piece, permanently," said Grissom-Kiely.

At Friday's reception and showing, the public can see what the art will look like and see where the building will rise.

Now, the spot is five vacant city lots just above Orange Street. But in the 1890s it was the site of the Gold Dust Hotel. The building was torn down in the 1960s, Grissom-Kiely said.

HomeWORD, which is the housing development arm of Women's Opportunity and resource Development (WORD), expects to break ground for the project in spring. The site is near the footbridge that crosses over the railroad tracks between the Northside and downtown.

the 'low-income' target."

Estep's employer, Salomon Smith Barney, gave $7,500, and HomeWORD raised $8,000 from individuals. HomeWORD's partners in the public art part of the development are the Art Museum of Missoula, the architectural firm of MacArthur, Means and Wells and the Northside neighborhood.

Earmarking 1 percent of the project's $1.8 million construction budget is modeled after the state and federal percent-for-art mandates. It's a first for HomeWORD, said art project coordinator Kay Grissom-Kiely, who is fund-raising and communications manager at HomeWORD.

"Dedicating 1 percent of the budget was a big deal," she said. "It's a new model for construction, and we hope others follow the model."

The idea, she said, came from the neighborhood. Residents expressed a wish for public art at a design meeting about two years ago.

"People from the Northside were saying, 'We would really like to have some public art here to bridge the two communities, bring people over,' " she said. "The whole concept grew out of a community need."

The art museum helped steer the process, she said, through a workshop about how to make a public art proposal and how to address public art concerns. After the first deadline in early October, 17 proposals came to vie for the final spots.

A selection committee of art professionals, residents, the architects and developers, chose Corra and Reifsneider. Corra is a blacksmith artist who fashioned a large-scale metal fence in six 9-foot panels. They incorporate symbols of nature as well as symbols that are important to the neighborhood, Grissom-Kiely said.

"And blacksmithing is such a historical art form," she said.

Reifsneider is a conceptual artist who will incorporate wish, memory and belief into her art. After collecting those sentiments from area residents, she will use them in glass bricks set into the cement in front of the building. They'll be lit from below at night and preserve the thoughts of this generation of residents.

"They'll have a mark on this art piece, permanently," said Grissom-Kiely.

At Friday's reception and showing, the public can see what the art will look like and see where the building will rise.

Now, the spot is five vacant city lots just above Orange Street. But in the 1890s it was the site of the Gold Dust Hotel. The building was torn down in the 1960s, Grissom-Kiely said.

HomeWORD, which is the housing development arm of Women's Opportunity and resource Development (WORD), expects to break ground for the project in spring. The site is near the footbridge that crosses over the railroad tracks between the Northside and downtown.

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