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A new economic development project opens in Ajo today, complete with housing for artists, a community center and a future business center.

Since the town's copper mine shut down in the 1980s, there hasn't been much new economic opportunity in the community of 4,000 people, said Tracy Taft, executive director of the nonprofit International Sonoran Desert Alliance.

The alliance led an $8.9 million effort to restore the old Curley School, which is reopening today along with its campus as the Curley School Artisan Lofts.

Twenty of the 30 new live-work spaces have been claimed by low-income artists from across the country, Taft said. Rent ranges from $207 to $625 for apartments ranging from 700 to 1,500 square feet.

"It will hopefully be a big draw for people to come out, because it's a sweet little place and the presence of the artists there will bring a lot of vitality to the community," said Mari Kaestle, a Tucson sculptor and illustrator who is moving into Curley School.

"As an artisan, I am really looking forward to being in an environment where I feel supported by my peers," she said.

The school auditorium was restored to an indoor-outdoor community venue with a roll-up door that frames the view of "A" Mountain. The center also has a computer lab and classroom space for an arts-based GED program modeled on Las Artes in Tucson.

"I think it's going to be wonderful for our community" and a new reason for people to visit Ajo, said Silvia Howard, executive director of the Ajo District Chamber of Commerce. Each year several thousand tourists come through Ajo as the gateway to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, she said.

Built in 1919, the eight buildings and the seven-acre campus had been neglected, Taft said.

"The building was falling down around the townspeople's feet," she said. "Literally, I would come to work and a window would have fallen out of the second story and was broken in the parking lot."

"This more or less rescued the building," said Howard, who called the school a jewel.

The public-private project was funded in part with a grant from Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco's Affordable Housing Program, which has awarded $45.3 million in grants to Arizona projects since its inception in 1990.

The next phase of the Curley project is to turn the old cafeteria building into a micro-business center.

Taft said the artists living at the Curley School are actually entrepreneurs.

"We're trying to really encourage them to build what they do, whether that's furniture-making or painting, and turn it into a business," she said.

The planned space will have a retail shop and gallery, space for business planning and marketing workshops, and a business services store for services such as copying and printing. An old cooler could be turned into mailboxes, and the original wooden roll-up door will separate the spaces, Taft said.

The center also could eventually provide micro-loans for small businesses, she said.

In the end, it's all an economic development effort, Taft said.

"There's not a lot of new investment in Ajo, and we can't look to the outside for some new industry to come in and create jobs like the mine used to," she said.

Recent developments include an IGA grocery store and two dollar stores.

Taft said she hopes the historic space will become a destination for cultural tourism, perhaps attracting some of the million-plus cars that drive through Ajo on the way to Rocky Point, Sonora, each year.