The idea for NXTHVN was born out of frustration. Artists and friends Titus Kaphar and Jonathan Brand, both graduates of the Yale School of Art’s MFA program, grew tired of driving across New Haven to visit the studios of the city’s many artists. How much better, they thought, would it be to create a centralized location—for not just New Haven artists, but young and emerging ones from all over? Five years after the idea bubbled up, NXTHVN is moving toward completion; when construction is done, it will be an ambitious arts incubator intended to help revitalize the low-income neighborhood where it’s located.

For two Yale SOM faculty members, NXTHVN seemed the perfect subject for a case study. Kate Cooney, senior lecturer in social enterprise and management, saw it as a community development story for her course Urban Poverty and Economic Development; William Goetzmann, the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies, viewed it as a way to study creative finance for his course Cases in Commercial Real Estate. Together they created a case that requires students to approach NXTHVN from multiple perspectives, while deepening their understanding of each course’s subject matter.