Urbanism & the Arts
We create spaces that connect communities.
Since 2005, through Berger Realty Group, we have stewarded the historic Chicago Fine Arts Building. In 2022, after an extensive renovation, we reopened the Studebaker Theater, launching as a new home to NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! as well as with year-round programming.
The building and theater together bring national attention to Chicago's creative communities, while also serving as a physical gathering place for artists, thinkers, and international audiences.
Erica and the team at the Studebaker co-produce and invest in other theatrical productions in New York and the United Kingdom as a mechanism for building bridges through story and relationships nationally and globally.
The Fine Arts Building and Studebaker Theater pay homage to Chicago's artistic legacy while continuing to act as a hub for civic and cultural imagination and creation.
Art alone endures.
The land home to the Fine Arts Building makes up the traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe, or the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other Nations consider this area their traditional homeland, including the Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Wea, Kickapoo, and Mascouten. We acknowledge all Native peoples who came before us and who continue to contribute to the city of Chicago.