(DURHAM) -- The Secretary of the state Department of Cultural Resources made an announcement about a new arts-driven economic development program at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham.  A task force recommends setting up teams to help communities inventory cultural resource, and offer incentives to private developers to pursue arts-centered development.

Secretary Linda Carlisle said many of the pieces for such teams are already in place. "We want to figure out, and help communities figure out how they take what they already have and build on it.  It's not starting from scratch with anything, but it's sort of wrapping our arms around what they have and figuring out how they can use that as a core for growing and expanding in those communities," said Carlisle.

The initiative is creating a grant program.  That program will select several communities across the state that will be awarded as much as $30,000 to start a pilot program that pursues the goals of the SmART task force recommendations.

Carlisle appointed the task force in fall 2010 to examine arts-driven economic development in North Carolina and around the country.