WESTBROOK – After two years and 19 exhibits, Westbrook’s Saccarappa Art Collective, the city’s only downtown gallery, will shutter its doors at the end of the year.

While the collective of eight artists has seen modest success during its two-year run, showing more than 70 professional Maine artists and making a mark on the regional arts scene, gallery director Andy Curran said a shoestring budget and lack of daily foot traffic are the primary reasons for the closure.

The gallery is hosting an opening of its final show on Thursday, Dec. 4, from 5-8 p.m., and is advertising it as such on its recent press releases and emails.

“It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our beloved gallery, and a resounding thank you to all of our supporters,” Curran said in the release. “It has been a great celebration of art for us, and we are all thankful for the opportunities the gallery has provided.”

The closing of Saccarappa Art Collective is the most recent in a string of announced changes taking place in the downtown area. At One Riverfront Plaza just across the Bridge Street bridge, Disability RMS will vacate its space at the end of next year. Just across the street from the gallery, local ice cream shop Catbird Creamery is in the midst of a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to shift locations, possibly out of the city. And sometime this winter, the state will begin work on a new Bridge Street bridge.

Curran said that during the past few months, he’s had quiet discussions with other members of the arts community and a regional nonprofit organization about possibly taking over the space and maintaining it as a gallery. He still has a glimmer of hope that this will happen.

“Someone could come in at the 11th hour and take this place over,” he said.

At the gallery Tuesday, Curran said the resounding theme among collective members is sadness for the closing, but he also believes the gallery is going out on top.

“In many ways, I think we’re closing at the top of our game,” he said, adding that the closure is ultimately a business decision.

In recent years, Westbrook has attempted to position itself as a home for artists, with cheaper studio and gallery spaces than neighboring Portland. A robust arts community is also widely seen as a sign of a thriving downtown. Banners along Main Street read, “artists work here” and “artists live here.” While a number of studio spaces housing working artists exist in the Dana Warp Mill and elsewhere, the lack of a downtown gallery space is seen as a setback.

Caren Michel, a Westbrook artist and resident who is a founding collective member, is also the chairwoman of the Westbrook Arts & Culture Committee. Michel said Wednesday that the gallery has created a buzz, and that it’s unfortunate as a Westbrook resident to lose the downtown art space.

“I think it leaves a huge hole in what draws people to downtown Westbrook,” she said, adding that the downtown would benefit from other small arts-based business to create a destination. “We were very successful as an individual entity, but I think if we had more of the same, it would have been more successsful.”

Curran also owns and operates the Aterra gift store next door, and said that while he has high hopes for Westbrook’s future, including the new Downtown Westbrook Coalition, Westbrook “is a tough town to run an art gallery in.” He said both Aterra and Saccarappa are losing money because of a lack of business.

But, he said, an art gallery is difficult to run no matter where it’s located. Curran said that while most art communities thrive on business during summer months, Westbrook has been the opposite, with February and March the peak months.

On average, the gallery sees 100-150 people at its openings, but then might see 15 people come into the gallery during the remaining month-long show period.

“If we don’t get a fish on the hook during the opening or the first week, we might as well close,” he said, referring to each six-week exhibit. “We don’t have foot traffic here.”

Ironically, the previous show at Saccarappa was one of its most successful – 14 works were sold.

Mary Brooking, one of three Westbrook-based artists and original members of the collective, said Wednesday that she sees the closing as bittersweet. Brooking said the gallery has been a successful venture for those involved, and has also presented other opportunities for participating artists.

Since the gallery’s inception, Brooking has established her studio in the rear of the building, and said she’s also been able to realize a dream of hers – teaching.

“I’m teaching now in two venues in Westbrook and Scarborough, and it’s been very successful,” she said, adding that she’s loved every minute of exhibiting at Saccarappa, but will now focus on other projects.

When asked what his marketing strategy has been at the gallery, Curran said that was “one of our weakest elements. As most galleries do, we were running on a shoestring, and our advertising budget was nil.”

He said the gallery got by with press releases and email blasts for each show.

James Tranchemontagne, owner of the Frog & Turtle restaurant, just around the corner from the gallery, said Wednesday that the two businesses helped each other gain additional foot traffic.

“When there were art openings, we’d get business from it, or Dancing Elephant or Fajita Grill would get business,” he said. “They weren’t just pulling from the Westbrook crowd, they were getting people from all over.”

Tranchemontagne said he was always amazed when Curran would introduce him to artists who were well known all over the state.

“Having a gallery is a really good look for a downtown,” he said. “It’s a huge loss, it’s unfortunate.”

He added that with Catbird Creamery also potentially leaving, it raises a bigger question of the policies in place at the city level.

While Curran is critical of the downtown and a perceived lack of foot traffic, he’s also invested. He’s keeping open Aterra, his gift store that features handmade jewelry, cards and other gifts made in Maine, and is also looking to establish a small gallery space in the store. Curran also lives on Main Street.

“I’m literally all in on Main Street,” he said. “I just had to pull back some of my chips.”

The block of businesses winding from Saccarappa to the Frog & Turtle has one owner and landlord, Waves Edge, LLC of Portland. Curran said the landlord’s flexibility with rent and other expenses has been the only way they’ve come this far.

“It’s the nature of galleries to come and go,” he said. “We all feel really good about what we’ve done here.”