Downtown Carbondale is about to be more vibrant.
Work is starting this week on two murals along North Main Street at the Carbondale Fire Bureau and Rite Aid, with four more planned for the summer, Mayor Michele Bannon said. Artist Eric Bussart of Clifford Twp. will paint a nature-themed rainbow trout mural on the Rite Aid at 54 N. Main St., starting by projecting his artwork onto the building Thursday evening to transfer it to the wall and then “putting paint up pretty aggressively” on Friday, he said. Just down the street, fellow local artist Zach Yahn began painting a Carbondalien mural on the firehouse across from City Hall on Wednesday, linking the fire company’s Station 51 with the city’s UFO lore and Area 51, Bannon said.
“I love this project because it’s just more than putting art on a wall,” she said. “It’s about us celebrating our history. It celebrates who we are. It makes us look to the future.”
As part of its Blueprint Community program, and working with NeighborWorks Northeastern Pennsylvania and Valley in Motion, Carbondale’s mural project will create six murals in the downtown showcasing values from Carbondale’s Community Heart & Soul program. Each mural will have a unique theme derived from hundreds of surveys and interviews conducted as part of the Community Heart & Soul program. Those themes are: people, history, nature, small-town feel, family friendly environment, and local business and community events.
A rendering of a nature-themed rainbow trout mural that will be on the side of the Rite Aid, 54 N. Main St., in Carbondale. Artist Eric Bussart is painting the mural. (COURTESY OF ERIC BUSSART)
A Carbondalien-themed mural on the Carbondale Fire Bureau building across from City Hall on North Main Street on Thursday. Artist Zach Yahn is painting the mural. (COURTESY OF MAYOR MICHELE BANNON)
The entire project is funded through grants, Bannon said.
Carbondale was one of 10 communities across Pennsylvania to become “Blueprint Communities” in April 2024 when it embarked on a free, year-and-a-half-long process to create a strategic plan to revitalize its downtown. Operating through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, the blueprint program works with community teams to create comprehensive revitalization strategies intended to improve the quality of life for residents and focus on building community assets, engaging residents, improving local housing and attracting new businesses and jobs, according to a news release from the bank announcing Carbondale’s participation last year.
Emily Arcaro, the community revitalization specialist for Carbondale at NeighborWorks, said they received a project grant through the Blueprint Communities program to hire artists and find locations for the murals. Valley in Motion also received a Creative Communities Initiative grant to help with installing the murals, Arcaro said.
She estimated the entire project will cost about $25,000, though it could end up around $30,000, she said.
“From previous community engagement exercises that we’ve done, we want to make sure that we’re hitting some goals and making sure that beautification can begin through public art,” Arcaro said.
Three of the four remaining murals will be on the “Woolworth Building” on North Main Street and Salem Avenue, Bannon and Arcaro said.
They will be retouching the existing “F.W. Woolworth Co.” mural on the side of the building, with the artist who painted it in 1974 touching up his artwork, Arcaro said. Just next to it, there will be a mural incorporated into the building’s wood-covered windows, and on the Salem Avenue side, Yahn will be painting another mural, she said.
“We’re using that as a connection piece to get people moving from North Main down to Church (Street),” Arcaro said of the Salem Avenue artwork.
The sixth mural will be on the Church Street side of the Greater Carbondale YMCA facing Albert’s Pharmacy, she said.
Officials reached out to community partners and local property owners to find mural locations, Arcaro said, explaining a committee of volunteers walked around the city looking for visible locations they felt would highlight the artwork.
“It just kind of fell into our lap with how these locations worked out,” she said. “It really is just to get people moving downtown, particularly on Main Street and on Church Street.”
If everything goes to plan, Arcaro hopes to have all six murals finished by the end of July.
Bannon sees the project as nurturing Carbondale’s community.
“I hope it draws interest, and I hope it starts to develop a core base of fundamental values that we operate from,” Bannon said, pointing to the six themes guiding the artwork.
Both Bannon and Arcaro hope to continue painting murals in Carbondale.
“When people see how cool they look and what an attraction they are, I think they’re going to want them, too,” Bannon said. “I do believe it’s going to be contagious.”
In a phone interview late Thursday afternoon as he prepared to begin work on his rainbow trout mural at the Rite Aid, Bussart said he often spent time in Carbondale, having lived in Clifford Twp. for a while. Carbondale is a “cool little city,” he said.
“It’s the cool little cities that almost never get the attention of big art groups and don’t get the chance to have street art,” Bussart said. “Making art accessible to areas that normally wouldn’t have it is a really special thing.”