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While crews prepare to dig into the 511 Federal Building, PNCA officials are busy planning a future where creativity colors the local economy.

“We think creative education is going to become more and more important, rather than more and more marginalized as it’s been in the last 100 years,” said Tom Manley, president of the Pacific Northwest College of Art. “We think that trend will reverse itself as businesses, and governments, and organizations, and individuals recognize their own creativity, and the importance of this kind of education in living in this highly complex world.”

The PNCA’s own history speaks to that trend. It began as a sketch club in 1891, and now has more than 100 full-time and part-time faculty members, 500-plus undergraduate and graduate students, and 1,450 continuing education students. Officials hope that by 2018 the college will serve 1,000 full-time students – even though student enrollment at four-year colleges has declined 11 percent in the past 10 years, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

But Manley said the PNCA’s students aren’t just artists and designers; many go on to become lawyers, medical professionals and entrepreneurs. And Manley expects the PNCA to fuel the professional economy for years to come in its Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design (the new name for the 511 Federal Building).

“Creative education more than any other time in my memory has become seen as a critical driver for entrepreneurialism, innovation and successful economic development,” Manley said. “So, all of that gives us some leverage in the larger world of higher education.”