NCMA Winston-Salem Opens New Downtown Exhibition Space on 4th Street as Main Campus Closes for 2026 Construction

At 400 W. 4th St., NCMA Winston-Salem has put art back in the middle of downtown while construction closes its Marguerite Drive campus through 2026. The museum's new exhibition and program space in the Twin City Lofts building opened July 16 with Unboxed: Art beyond the Museum, a free show on view through Aug. 30. The space is open Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.; Thursday from 1 to 7 p.m.; and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Plans also include outdoor concerts, vinyl nights and other programs designed to connect visitors, artists and community organizations.

Work at Marguerite Drive began in summer 2026 as part of a phased renovation and expansion program spanning the Raleigh and Winston-Salem campuses, a project expected to take two to three years. The renovated Winston-Salem campus is slated for reopening as early as 2028.

West 4th Street gives the effort a highly visible address. Often called Restaurant Row, the corridor links downtown with the historic West End and is lined with restaurants, bars, breweries, theaters, shops and apartments. West End Cafe, Mozelle's, Foothills Brewing, Aperture Cinema and Young Cardinal Cafe are among the nearby businesses and venues. "Our return to downtown Winston-Salem puts us in the heart of the city's entertainment and business district," Bill Carpenter, NCMA Winston-Salem executive director, said. "We're excited to participate so directly in the cultural and economic growth of downtown."

The move also marks a return to the museum's downtown roots. NCMA Winston-Salem was founded in 1956 on Trade Street as the Gallery of Fine Art, a co-op gallery serving regional artists. The institution moved to Old Salem in the 1960s, then settled at the 32-acre James G. Hanes estate on Marguerite Drive, where renovations were completed in 1976 and it officially opened as the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in 1977. It became an affiliate of the North Carolina Museum of Art in 2007 and was officially renamed NCMA Winston-Salem by the North Carolina Legislature in 2023.

Unboxed: Art beyond the Museum puts that artist-centered history at the heart of the downtown debut. The exhibition features work by 13 North Carolina-based artists, including Nico Amortegui, Kevin Calhoun, Emily Clare, Owens Daniels and Ellen Heck, all contributors to the museum's Portable Gallery outreach program. Many of the works are for sale, unlike those in a typical museum exhibition. Bill Carpenter, NCMA Winston-Salem executive director, said visitors will "experience museum-quality exhibitions and unique opportunities to connect with artists and each other."

By choosing a visible West 4th Street site instead of pausing programming or moving it out of sight, the museum is running a live experiment in whether flexible, street-level arts programming can strengthen Winston-Salem's creative economy and downtown foot traffic in ways that outlast the Marguerite Drive renovation. The space's location in a mixed-use corridor surrounded by restaurants, theaters and retail creates conditions to test whether museum programming can amplify existing foot traffic and create spillover benefits for neighboring businesses. If the downtown space proves that street-level cultural programming drives sustained engagement and economic activity, it could inform whether NCMA Winston-Salem maintains a permanent downtown presence after the Marguerite Drive campus reopens — and whether institutions with suburban campuses need street-level satellites to remain central to a city's creative economy.