Laramie civic center shifts to nonprofit ownership after board dissolves
City and county have dissolved the civic center board, handing Laramie Plains Civic Center at 710 E. Garfield St. to nonprofit ownership.
The City of Laramie and Albany County have finalized the dissolution of the Laramie Plains Civic Center Joint Powers Board, shifting the historic facility at 710 E. Garfield St. into nonprofit ownership. The change ends a local government structure that had governed one of Laramie’s most visible public gathering spaces for decades.
The Laramie Plains Civic Center has been tied to city-county governance since the original joint powers agreement was approved on Nov. 27, 1979. Before that, the building was a school owned and operated by Albany County School District No. 1 until 1978. A later city resolution dated Dec. 17, 2019 supported transferring the property to Laramie Plains Civic Center, Inc., described as a nonprofit charitable corporation, and then terminating the joint powers board.
That board was not large. A 2014 agreement said it would consist of seven members, all qualified electors of Albany County. City and county records listed members including Jennifer Drew and Robin Hill, underscoring that the civic center had long been managed through a formal local-government appointment structure before the nonprofit handoff.
The nonprofit now at the center of the building’s operations says it is a stand-alone 501(c)(3) organization led by a board of directors and staff. Its website identifies Jessica Brauer as executive director, Aubree Wallace as assistant director and visual arts director, and Adam Bender as theatre director. The organization’s mission and history page says the building began as the East Side School in 1878 and is the oldest school building in Wyoming.
The facility’s scale helps explain why the ownership change matters beyond paperwork. A 2024 Cowboy State Daily article described the former school as 167,000 square feet. LPCC says it houses more than 95 tenant organizations, supports more than 300 artists and hosts hundreds of cultural events, making it a daily hub for meetings, performances and community programming in Laramie.
The nonprofit structure also appears to have become the vehicle for fundraising and capital work. LPCC launched its “Stronger Together: Neighbors in Action” tenant volunteer program in 2025 to support local pantries, and the organization says it received a Wyoming Community Foundation grant for LED lighting upgrades. It also reported a $5,000 grant to expand visual arts programming.
The transition caps a long shift from public-school building to local-government stewardship and now to nonprofit ownership. For Albany County, the practical test will be whether the new structure keeps the civic center financially steady while preserving the access that has made the historic building a central part of downtown Laramie’s civic life.
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