Heartland Film has moved its headquarters to the Fort Ben campus

Lawrence is now home to one of Indianapolis' major cultural institutions: Heartland Film has announced its move to the Fort Benjamin Harrison Cultural Campus.

The nonprofit, which runs the Heartland International Film Festival and Indy Shorts International Film Festival along with year-round programming, moved its headquarters Dec. 7 to the Sterrett Center at 8950 Otis Ave. The new location is 8,200 square feet — almost double the 4,300 square feet of space in the previous Fountain Square offices, President Michael Ault said.

Especially key is the new events space inside, he said.

"The fact that we now have an events space that will hold 300 people seated for a dinner or a theatrical production or whatever — we are really looking forward to inviting people to this location," Ault said.

"Before, we would always have to rent something like that out for special events. Now we actually have the space that's ours that we can do a lot of internal things that are cost-effective for us and hopefully will allow us to bring in additional revenue."

The public can visit the new space this month. A ribbon-cutting will take place at 3:30 p.m. Jan. 25 and will be followed by an open house until 6 p.m.

Heartland Film was founded in 1991, and for 10 years, its headquarters were inside the Murphy Art Center in Fountain Square. The lease was up in 2021, Ault said, but the staff began working from home in March 2020. The organization had already been looking for a larger space, but the pandemic's effects on real estate removed some options from the table, he said, so Heartland picked up the search again in January 2022.

The answer came when Ault toured Fort Ben's newly renovated Theater at the Fort and Lawrence city leadership encouraged him to think of the Sterrett Center as a possibility since the parks and recreation department was moving out, he said.

"The first thing (I thought) was, 'Oh, we want to stay downtown. We want to be in the middle of the city," Ault said.

But the next day, he thought again about the offer.

"It's close to Geist, it's close to Keystone at the Crossing and downtown. It's actually a pretty convenient location," he said.

The Fort Ben Cultural Campus continues to gather momentum as a home for the arts, especially since the project acquired more than $5.8 million from the Lilly Endowment in 2018. The city of Lawrence and nonprofit Arts for Lawrence partnered to envision the fort as a cultural destination that has included expanding its historic theater as well as installing a popular musical swing set, amphitheater and Visual Arts Center.

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The Sterrett Center, which is next to the Theater at the Fort, used to be the Fort Harrison Service Club and was a place for enlisted men to spend leisure time.

Opened in 1906, Fort Ben has been used as a reception center during World War II, a hub for administrative training and housing prisoners of war, among other uses. It closed down in the early 1990s, and in 1996, the Fort Harrison Reuse Authority was formed to repurpose it for civilian use.

Now that the Sterrett Center has been renovated to fit Heartland's general office needs, Ault said the next phase will include outfitting the building with a sound system, screen, projector and more.

The Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation and donors have contributed to the renovations, and more announcements on gifts and fundraising will be forthcoming, he said.

Heartland's festivals will still show films in theaters across the city, and having the Theater at the Fort next door allows for even more opportunities, Ault said. Theater at the Fort and Heartland can partner to bring in and educate students and cross-promote events as well.

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Contact IndyStar reporter Domenica Bongiovanni at 317-444-7339 or d.bongiovanni@indystar.com. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter: @domenicareports.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Heartland Film has moved its headquarters to Fort Ben campus