The Griot Center

Griot Arts is transforming two long-vacant historic buildings in Downtown Clarksdale—a 1918 department store and the former Paramount Theater—into The Griot Center: a home for youth arts education, performance, film, creative workforce development, and community gathering.

Kudzu Collective is leading a multi-year development process, which has included pre-design, existing-conditions assessment, preservation strategy, programming, and community visioning as part of an interdisciplinary team led by architects Ryan Biles and Ngozi Brown. The work began by listening: community members shared memories of the theater, including its segregated entrance and balcony stair, helping establish an approach that acknowledges the site’s difficult history while creating a more inclusive future.

Community engagement has been a central part of the work. Kudzu Collective and NOB A+D co-led two visioning sessions that brought residents, Griot stakeholders, and local youth into conversations about the building’s history, its future role, and the stories that should be carried forward. A subsequent design exercise led by NOB A+D developed an interpretive experience around the former segregated entry, creating a framework for visitors to encounter and understand that history rather than leave it unspoken.

The resulting program connects arts instruction and studios, performance and film spaces, Meraki coffee and gathering areas, creative-business opportunities, and flexible spaces for the broader community. It provides a practical framework for a phased rehabilitation of the approximately 56,800-square-foot complex.

Listed among Mississippi Heritage Trust’s 2023 10 Most Endangered Historic Places, the Paramount Theater’s condition underscored the urgency of securing the complex before further loss. Grants from the Kataly Foundation and the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Building Fund for the Arts supported early stabilization and ground-floor mural art on the window-protection covers—keeping the building protected while bringing color and creative activity to Yazoo Avenue.

In 2024 and 2025, initial stabilization work secured the building envelope, replaced key roofs, stabilized vulnerable masonry, and began reopening the former department-store floor plan. In 2025, A+ Signs & Creative carefully removed, protected, and stored the fragile historic Paramount marquee to prevent further damage to both the sign and building. A new illuminated sign now announces the future Griot Center.

The next phase as anticipated to bring Griot’s current programs into the first floor and activate the historic Paramount Theater—returning a highly visible downtown landmark to productive community use.

Project team

• Design PartnerNgozi (Nome) Brown, NOB Architecture + Design, Little Rock, Ark.
• Design PartnerShine Interior Design Studio, Lonoke, Ark.
• LandscapeBrantley Snipes Landscape & Design, Greenwood, Miss.
• Community PartnerThrive, Inc., Helena, Ark.