Reprinted from Nexycity.org. Cinnamon Janzler
Florida’s Zero Empty Spaces connects artists with spaces in otherwise vacant spots to bolster their careers, activating unused space in the process.
Zero Empty Spaces celebrates the opening of its 26th location in St. Petersburg, Florida, inside Simon Property Group’s Tyrone Square Mall, on July 30, 2022 with the initial resident artists of the space. (Photo courtesy Zero Empty Spaces)
Since the pandemic, large swaths of office space across the United States have sat vacant. The downtown areas and other commercial centers that have enjoyed the built-in business that office workers bring have gone from bustling to bust.
At the beginning of 2024, 13.7% of office space was empty, while 7.6% of multifamily buildings, 4% of retail spaces and 5.6% of industrial spaces were vacant. As cities scramble to find creative new uses for these spaces, from climbing gyms to small-scale manufacturing to vertical farms, one organization in Florida has a stop-gap answer: Use the empty space for affordable artist studios.
Since launching in June 2019, Zero Empty Spaces has placed more than 600 artists in 10 commercial buildings in 10 cities. Most are in Florida but extend as far as Little Rock, Arkansas, and Boston.
Placements last about 18 months on average, with some lasting for years. Artists pay between $2.50 to $4.50 a square foot, including all utilities, for spaces that range from 80 to 250 square feet. Artists must commit to working on at least one piece a month and being in the space at least one day a week between noon and 5 p.m.
Prior to the pandemic, Zero Empty Spaces co-founders Evan Snow and Andrew Martineau had already been working on innovative ways to bolster the arts in Florida’s Broward County where they’re based.
“Our community has always been considered a cultural wasteland,” Snow explains. “We’re in between Miami to the south and Palm Beach to the north.”
Having spent plenty of time in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, which helped turn the city’s warehouses into a hotspot for the arts, Snow and Martineau decided to play on their community’s water-based strengths and host art shows in mansions that could only be accessible by boat.
“Long story short, we did that for four years up until COVID,” Snow says. By summer 2019, they had worked with more than 1,000 independent artists, many of whom lamented the perennial challenge of finding affordable studio space.
At the same time, brokers, developers and members of the county’s real estate community were asking Snow and Martineau to host art shows in their commercial spaces.
“We saw all these ‘For Lease’ signs and said, what if we can make [Broward County] one of the most affordable places for artists to create and collaborate?” Snow says. Equipped with Martineau’s background in retail development for shopping centers, which included vacancy management strategies that transformed vacant mall spaces into commission-free art galleries, the idea for Zero Empty Spaces was born.
The duo reached out to Fort Lauderdale’s mayor and shared their idea to activate vacant commercial spaces to create affordable artist studios until permanent tenants could be secured. The mayor suggested reaching out to the man who held the most property in downtown Fort Lauderdale at the time. He happened to have a whopping 19 vacancies.
Zero Empty Spaces brought in nine artists to fill one of the developer’s spaces, which had actually been an art studio originally. “We had one of the best attended grand openings in anything in Fort Lauderdale’s history,” Snow says of the event, which won local and national news coverage.
About three months into that activation, the landlord found a permanent tenant. “We just ask for a 30-day notice to vacate when that happens,” Snow says.
Zero Empty Space’s Boca Raton location is the largest single office facility in the state, according to Giana Pacinelli, director of communications for CP Group, the location’s commercial partner. She tells Next City that working with the organization “has allowed us to activate our vacancies while bringing a special amenity to our existing office tenants.”
Pacinelli says the tenants enjoy seeing the work of the 17 artists placed there as they move through the campus. They’ve ultimately developed their own relationships with the artists, even purchasing their work as gifts or for their personal collections. “The collaboration helps us develop a productive and creative ecosystem that tenants won’t find at other office buildings, giving us a competitive advantage,” she says.
Naturally, there are benefits enjoyed on the artists’ side as well.
The emerging, mid-career and established artists Zero Empty Spaces works with are able to afford studio or gallery space in popular parts of town that would otherwise be unattainable. And in the process, they can enjoy opportunities that might otherwise evade them.
The Fort Lauderdale gallery, for example, was located on a street that Snow compares to Rodeo Drive. “Artists would never have been able to afford [space] there,” he says. “Some of [our artists] have had tens of thousands of dollars of sales and made life-changing connections, gotten exposure to the press.”
Most recently, Zero Empty Spaces is working to expand beyond in-person events. They’re working to launch an online store so customers nationally and internationally can support their artists.
“It’s going to be another ‘win’ scenario that helps artists sell and get discovered,” Snow says.
This article has been corrected to reflect that Zero Empty Spaces is not a non-profit organization, to update the number of artists at the Boca Raton location, and to indicate that the Fort Lauderdale location was a gallery rather than a studio.
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Cinnamon Janzer is a freelance journalist based in Minneapolis. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, U.S. News & World Report, Rewire.news, and more. She holds an MA in Social Design, with a specialization in intervention design, from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Fine Art from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The ghosts of Chicago restaurants past
/in UncategorizedReprinted from the Reader
For more than a hundred years, Dinkel’s Bakery was the hookup for baked goods in Lakeview and Roscoe Village; its iconic sign served as a beacon for everyday carb-seekers and musicians loitering at the Chicago Music Exchange across the street.
Dinkel’s closed its doors in 2022. Look through the storefront windows today and you’ll see a mess of old equipment, garbage, and other wayward debris. Less than a block away, what was once McGuigan’s Irish Pub still has dusty beer bottles visible through its windows.
Whether it’s Pick Me Up Cafe’s old Lakeview location, Leona’s in Rogers Park, or Marcello’s Father & Son in Logan Square, it seems like one is never more than a Malört bottle’s throw from a shuttered restaurant, cafe, or bar. Restaurants close for a variety of reasons, but what keeps the buildings vacant long after the tenant moves out?
Allan Perales, chief operating officer of commercial real estate firm Goldstreet Partners, says food service spaces can remain vacant for years for reasons ranging from immovably high rent to stalled redevelopment plans to pending legal disputes. It’s also not uncommon for prospective tenants to avoid certain buildings due to stigma, or for spaces to remain empty for years simply due to poor marketing on the landlord’s part.
“Challenges with landlords, such as reputational issues or difficulty during negotiations, can also prolong vacancies,” says Perales. “A landlord–tenant relationship is similar to a partnership. It works well when things are going smoothly, but difficulties arise when challenges like late payments occur.”
Just one of these issues can keep a tenantless storefront vacant for years at a time—a neighborhood haunt turned into a neighborhood specter.
Credit: Shira Friedman-Parks
Owners of storefronts that sit vacant for more than 30 days are required by the city to register the property and to follow insurance and maintenance guidelines laid out by the Chicago Department of Buildings. City data shows 37,088 vacant and abandoned buildings have been reported to Chicago’s nonemergency 311 call center since 2010. Additionally, 5,004 vacant building violations have been reported since 2011.
The Loop saw its all-time highest retail vacancy rate in 2023, at over 30 percent; it was the culmination of a four-year trend beginning in 2019 and largely attributed to the pandemic. The city does not track data on the specific number of restaurant and building vacancies, and violations reported by citizens only tell so much of the story.
A space will sometimes be leased but still sit inactive for years. In July 2023, developer PCR Group submitted plans for the Dinkel’s space to be redeveloped into a 66,000-square-foot mixed-use building.
Nicole Alexander, founder and principal designer of Siren Betty Design, says empty restaurant and food-service spaces can be especially prone to poor aging.
“Moisture is the most immediate threat when a space is vacant,” says Alexander. “Damage can show up after a couple months or even weeks of being empty. Also rodents. I’ve never known a restaurant to do a deep clean before they close permanently.”
Food waste is another major issue, especially in cases where a business is forced to close abruptly. When all Foxtrot stores simultaneously closed last April, Eater Chicago reported many stores still contained unsold inventory as late as October of that same year.
“After five years, the bar could be rotted, the drywall moldy, the doors and shelving warped, toilets and sinks stained, HVAC and pipes rusty, leather upholstery dried and cracked. After ten years, you probably need a whole new everything,” says Alexander.
She says extensive renovations can cost roughly $250–$450 per square foot.
“Surface damage is easy to see and also relatively easy to fix. It’s what’s hiding underneath that can really make or break a budget.”
“We’ve also worked on projects where our client is so excited about the space and the location,” she says. “But then we get in there and realize that there’s massive damage from a burst pipe, or the sewer lines are a disaster, or some other huge, expensive fix.”
It’s all a very roundabout way of saying: yes, space left to rot for a decade will suck to renovate.
Restaurateur Mike Chen, who also manages Kyuramen in River North, worked with Perales to purchase a space in River North that had sat vacant for more than a decade.
“I don’t know why [the building] was vacant for that long,” says Chen. “Maybe there were other interested parties, and they couldn’t come to the right terms. It’s a good space with a corner spot, very high visibility on LaSalle and Hubbard. . . . I knew there had been several changes of ownership.”
Chen says that the two-level space, formerly a restaurant called Vinyl, was well maintained by the landlord at the time it was purchased.
“Sadly, that’s not typically the case,” says Alexander. “In Chicago, landlords tend to own multiple properties, so they’re not always diligent about maintaining them in between tenants.”
As Chen prepares for renovation, he says his biggest expense will be the removal of a large iron hood left behind by the previous tenant.
“Yes, it’s very common for equipment to be left behind,” Alexander says. “Typically cooktops, hoods, and some bar equipment can be serviced and salvaged. But many times the equipment that has been left isn’t what the new tenant is looking for.”
Even if a space is maintained well enough to ward off decay, shifting building codes can still require prohibitively expensive renovations. “For example,” says Perales, “restaurants built in the 1990s might need to replace exhaust systems to meet current codes, and these costs can skyrocket, particularly in high-rise buildings.”
General contracting company Vero Design + Build cofounder Josh Veselsky notes that regardless of what shape it might be in, working with a space meant for food service is always preferable to converting a building into something food-service friendly.
Credit: Shira Friedman-Parks
“Oftentimes a vacant restaurant will have outdated construction that needs to be brought up to current code compliance or supplement with new technology, but a vacant restaurant usually ticks a lot more boxes than, say, a vacant currency exchange,” says Veselsky. “We’ve renovated banks, office spaces, retail stores, lofts, and even boats and churches into restaurant spaces, and the efforts and costs are always greater to bring restaurant-specific systems into a building that a restaurant did not previously inhabit.”
The Cook County Land Bank Authority (CCLBA) was created in 2013 to actively purchase vacant properties. Though abandoned restaurant spaces aren’t the organization’s primary focus, 2024 saw soul food and Jamaican restaurant Jerk Soule, originally a food truck, open inside an abandoned building in Ashburn, purchased through the CCLBA in 2021.
Jerk Soule’s founder Judith Smith opened the restaurant as a tribute to her late father, and the restaurant quickly became a welcome addition to the Ashburn food scene.
CCLBA executive director Jessica Caffrey told ABC7, “In the past, buildings like this would have sat vacant for ten or 15 years, but now with visionaries like Judith, it’s now a community asset.”
There’s no better space for a new restaurant than an old restaurant, and organizations like the CCLBA demonstrate that building upcycling programs can be effective. Not every aspiring restaurateur has the money to save an existing space, but if all of our friends can name at least one abandoned restaurant in their neighborhood, isn’t that a problem?
How some Ohio cities are bringing new life to old malls
/in UncategorizedReprinted from WOSU. https://www.wosu.org/2025-02-07/how-some-ohio-cities-are-bringing-new-life-to-old-malls
Commercial Asset Preservation can help landlords maintain their vacant shopping malls and ease the transition to a new life for these valuable assets.
Just off Interstate 75 at exit 68 north of Dayton, the Tipp City Plaza once bustled with businesses, offering a convenient spot to pick up groceries, dry cleaning and lunch all in one stop.
These days, though, about half the storefronts are vacant.
An “AVAILABLE” sign leans against a window so dirty people have drawn shapes into the dust.
Next door, at a grocery store abandoned years ago, bags of chips and salsa, bottles of juice and cans of vegetables still line the shelves.
“This is right off the highway — the entrance to our downtown — and this is kind of the first thing you see,” said City Manager Eric Mack. “It’s really not very welcoming or nice looking.”
So after months of consideration, Tipp City decided to intervene. In December, it agreed to purchase the struggling plaza for almost $7 million, with hopes of redeveloping the space.
Other cities across the state are making similar moves.
Plans to redevelop struggling shopping centers
On the opposite side of Dayton, the City of Middletown purchased the defunct Towne Mall in August. Once a shopping destination, the city is now considering new uses for the space. Residents have suggested pickleball courts, a water park, arcade and skate park.
Just north of Middletown, the city of West Carrollton demolished an old shopping center a few years ago to make way for its new river district — a development that will include apartments and condos, plus a whitewater park for kayaking and river surfing.
Cleveland is offering property tax breaks for a project redeveloping the Galleria Mall. Part of those plans involve creating an entertainment space, where visitors can gather to watch live sports on big screens.
And two projects are underway in the Cincinnati area to repurpose dying malls.
On the east side, Union Township is collaborating with a design firm to re-envision the Eastgate Mall. And to the city’s north, Springdale City Council approved a plan to redevelop the former Tri-County Mall into apartments, hotels and a medical office building.
Why are so many malls struggling?
Massive projects like these are necessary because the malls no longer serve the purposes they were built for, says Lee Peterson, a retail expert and executive vice president of strategy for WD Partners in Dublin, Ohio.
“Those malls have become ghost towns,” he said.
His company studies consumer shopping habits. In 2018, they found only about 20% of people preferred to shop online. Today, that number has soared to 70%.
“The pandemic was like letting the genie out of the bottle for online shopping,” Peterson said.
As more people discovered the ease of e-tailers, traffic dropped at strip malls like the Tipp City Plaza and lower-tier indoor malls like Middletown’s Towne Mall. As a result, shopping centers across the country have been devastated.
“Retailers [are] bailing on their leases, or their leases are up and they’re not going to renew. Department stores are closing all across the country. And subsequently, the developers have to do something with these spaces,” Peterson said. “That’s where the cities may step in and say, ‘We’ll give it a try with something completely different.’”
But can cities be successful?
Probably not if they plan on bringing in the same types of chain retailers as before, Peterson said. But if they can find new uses for the land — like housing or green spaces, coworking offices and local coffee roasters — they could be.
Peterson says a popular idea lately is the “15-minute city” — where people can live, work, exercise and have fun all within a 2-mile radius.
“It’s pretty idealistic, but, you know, 10 years from now, we may not think that at all,” he said.
The future of Tipp City Plaza
Tipp City’s plans for its recently purchased plaza start small.
“In the short term, [we’re] trying to make it look a little better for the residents,” Mack said.
The city plans to fill in the potholes that litter the parking lot and touch up the landscaping to help the space feel more inviting.
But the long-term vision is more grand. There’s nothing concrete in place yet, but Mack says the dream is for the property to be a mixed-use space.
“Potentially an apartment building right here,” Mack said, “[and] some retail spaces up closer to Main Street.”
It’ll likely take years before the city can begin redevelopment in earnest, but when it does, Mack is hopeful the area will thrive with city leadership — just like it did so many years ago under private ownership.
Abandoned Michigan hotel to be transformed into affordable housing for veterans
/in UncategorizedReprinted from Michigan Live.
NOTE: These are the types of dreams that CAP can make happen through its property preservation services
SOUTHFIELD, MI – Some local military veterans will soon call a former Michigan hotel their home.
Members of the Tunnel of Towers Foundation, a non-profit which supports first responders, Gold Star families and military veterans, just broke ground on its Detroit Veteran Village in Southfield.
The foundation will renovate the former hotel at 25100 Northwestern Highway into 85 single-occupancy apartments for local veterans.
And this will be more than just a place for these local veterans to live. Tunnel of Towers Veteran Villages will also offer residents on-site support services including job training, benefits assistance, education assistance, medical care access, mental health support + PTSD counseling and addiction treatment.
There are currently Tunnel to Towers Veteran Villages in Houston, Texas; Riverside, California; West Los Angeles, California; and Phoenix, Arizona with construction underway at facilities in Florida, Georgia, New York, Colorado, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.
How to Avoid a Frozen Vacant Property
/in UncategorizedCHALLENGE
Vacant or abandoned retail property can often take a beating during winter. Few or no tenants combined with security and weather conditions leave retailers at risk for disaster. If a property is not properly winterized, property issues such as freeze damage, burst pipes, and flooding can happen. In situations where there is no one working inside of a building and therefore, nobody is available to observe the condition of that property during cold spells, freeze damage can occur unabated and without warning. History has shown that even properties in traditional warmer locales, including the southeastern U.S., can be victim to dangerous cold temperatures subjecting these properties to damage caused by temperatures that drop below 32 F (freeze level).
BEST PRACTICE IMPLEMENTED
Managing a vacant retail property through the cold winter months requires consideration of certain factors:
Partial Winterization: A partial winterization should be performed in cases where a retailer’s store is part of a multi-tenant building with some occupied units. A partial winterization consists of:
Documentation and Signage: Written details along with extensive photographs showing the winterization steps as they are being completed should be used to document the work. In addition, notices should be posted on the front entrance of the store, all water fixtures and in the kitchen/break areas, to indicate that the property has been winterized in order to reduce the risk of the water system being compromised.
Property Checks: Of equal importance to the act of winterizing the vacant store is conducting periodic follow-up inspections after the winterization to check on the condition of the property. Property checks are a prudent and inexpensive business decision. Winterized properties can still incur break-ins, vandalism, copper theft or even the simple use of a faucet or commode by a vagrant or a broker, thereby inviting the risk of a water system breach. Winterization without periodic property checks only provides partial protection against the hazards of cold weather.
RESULTS OF THE BEST PRACTICE
Properly winterizing a building and accompanying the winterization service with periodic property checks virtually eliminates the risk of freeze damage. Proactively taking these property protection actions lowers insurance risk and ensures that a property retains value. Through the performance of a winterization service combined with periodic property checks, retailers can sleep easier at night knowing that their properties in cold weather regions are also resting comfortably all day and night.
VERIFICATION OF EFFICIENCY AND/OR SAVINGS CAPTURED
There are numerous documented instances of freeze damage to properties. Nearly every retail facilities maintenance professional can recall an incident of frozen pipes. Most often freeze damage occurs when a retailer or building owner attempts to save money by choosing not to winterize a property in the hope that the weather never gets cold enough to freeze, or that they can transfer the vacant property to a new owner before freezing temperatures occur. Winter storms cause an average of $1.25 billion in annual losses. The average claim for damage from a frozen pipe is about $18,000. When comparing the average one-time cost of $650 for a retail store winterization and the low cost for an occasional inspection to make sure that the winterization is still intact, clearly it is always best to invest in a professionally managed winterization program. Better to be safe than sorry.
Commercial Asset Preservation is the premier U.S. provider of general maintenance, repair, day porter and inspection services for operating and vacant commercial real estate.
Transforming Office Spaces: Repurposing Underutilized Structures in the United States
/in UncategorizedReprinted from Arch Daily
River Point / Pickard Chilton. Image © Angie McMonigal
The continuation of remote work practices has altered cities’ bustling downtown areas along with the traditional office landscape, leaving behind many vacant spaces whose future purpose is a matter of speculation. Four years after the onset of hybrid working policies, office occupancy rates in urban centers remain lower than pre-pandemic levels, signaling a long-term shift in the work environment. Some developers have aimed to reposition these buildings while other are seeking alternative uses of vacant buildings in central location. While both approaches prove beneficial in their own ways, the potential for repurposing office buildings is vast and exciting. From residential living to cutting-edge research facilities, architects and developers explore diverse possibilities and challenges of transforming these underutilized structures into thriving new spaces.
Office vacancy rates in the United States have sharply increased, with forecasts indicating that a large share of office spaces could be left empty in the near future. In reaction, there’s been a recent trend in office-conversion projects across urban areas. By early 2024, nearly 70 million square feet of office space were already in the process of being repurposed, and the number of conversion completions projected to more than double compared to last year. Among the many office-conversion projects anticipated for completion, most are being transformed into multifamily residential spaces. Though this is a popular option, there are many other productive ways to transform and revitalize office spaces:
Office to Residential
Office to Hotel
Similar to office-to-residence conversions, the opportunity to repurpose commercial space into hotels prove beneficial when located in prime downtown areas near amenities and attractions. Historic office structures lend themselves well for boutique hotel concepts. For example, Aspen Hospitality plans to transform 10 vacant office floors at 10 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City into the 130-room Little Nell luxury boutique hotel. Experts highlight that about 25% of Manhattan’s vacant office spaces, particularly older Class B and C buildings, are suitable for such conversions due to their smaller floor plates and favorable ceiling heights. The rise in hotel room demand, driven by strong tourism recovery and restricted new hotel developments, has made these conversions lucrative
These projects require significant modifications such as, updates to mechanical systems and adherence to new environmental regulations. Floor plans need to be reconfigured to accommodate guest rooms and suites and allow for each room to be fitted with private bathrooms. HVAC systems must be upgraded to allow for individual room control, and new features such as lobby and reception areas are to be created. Additional amenities, including restaurants, meeting rooms, and fitness centers, can be added to enhance the guest experience.
Office to Life Sciences Building
Growth in the life sciences sector has resulted in a demand for well-designed laboratory and research spaces. Office conversions, particularly in biotech hubs, have been meeting these needs. Typically, these conversions involve repurposing a portion of office space for lab use to generate rental income comparable to that of a newly constructed life science facility. The cost savings from converting an existing office building can be substantial, often current expenses by at least 50% compared to a new development. Office-to-lab conversions accounted for nearly 10 million square feet of new lab space in the largest U.S. life sciences markets by the end of 2021
Office to life science building conversions benefit from proximity to established life science clusters, supporting the attraction of top talent and collaboration among researchers. To adapt office buildings for lab use, several design modifications are essential: floors must be reinforced to support heavy equipment, ceiling heights increased for specialized ventilation, and electrical and plumbing systems upgraded to meet lab standards. Additionally, creating specialized spaces like clean rooms and improving loading dock access are crucial for supporting the demands of life science operations.
Office to Healthcare Facility
As healthcare needs expand, converting offices into medical facilities has become an appealing option, especially for properties already located near hospitals or in areas with insufficient medical services. This trend is being driven by a demand for accessible healthcare. Around 10,000 baby boomers are retiring daily in the United States and this has resulted in a need for convenient one-stop healthcare solutions. Recent examples, such as the renovation of a three-story office building into a state-of-the-art medical facility for Summit Health in Long Island, New York, depict the potential of these conversions.
Essential design modifications for these conversions include reconfiguring spaces to accommodate waiting rooms, exam rooms, and procedure areas; upgrading HVAC systems for better air filtration; enhancing plumbing to support medical equipment; improving accessibility features; and installing specialized medical waste disposal systems.
Office to Storage Unit
In locations that are less well-connected, there have been instances of converting office buildings into self-storage facilities as a cost-effective solution to meet the demand for storage units in the United States. Start-ups like Stuf emerged during the pandemic and repurposed vacant offices, empty garages, and unused storefronts instead of constructing new storage warehouses. Stuf lays its focus on urban areas by collaborating with landlords to install largely automated storage units into these underutilized spaces, generating revenue for both parties.
Key design changes to convert office buildings into storage facilities include the ability to remove interior walls to create large, open storage areas. Floors may need reinforcement to handle heavy loads. Climate control systems could be installed to protect temperature-sensitive items, and security systems such as surveillance cameras and access control systems are to be added to ensure safety of the stored items.
Repurposing office buildings into residential spaces, hotels, laboratories and more are successful at addressing specific market demands while also promoting sustainability in the construction and real estate industry. The adaptive reuse of underutilized properties allow for minimized waste and reduced carbon emissions associated with new construction. Additionally, these projects benefit from a shorter turnaround time compared to developments started from scratch. Conversions offer a streamlined approval process and quicker construction timelines, offering an efficient solution to meet evolving needs.
The trend in office conversions raises important questions about the future of commercial real estate and the need for adaptable design. The multiple office conversions have made it clear that the lifecycle of a building may involve multiple repurposing. To facilitate these future conversions and maximize the long-term value of commercial properties, architects and developers should consider incorporating flexibility into their initial designs. This forward-thinking approach of “future-proofing” designs involve creating spaces with versatile floor plans, robust infrastructures, and easily modifiable systems. This strategy not only enhances the longevity of buildings but also potentially reduces the costs and environmental impact of future conversions.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Multi-Purpose Spaces. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.
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Using Vacant Commercial Spaces As Affordable Artist Studios Is a Win-Win
/in UncategorizedReprinted from Nexycity.org. Cinnamon Janzler
Florida’s Zero Empty Spaces connects artists with spaces in otherwise vacant spots to bolster their careers, activating unused space in the process.
Zero Empty Spaces celebrates the opening of its 26th location in St. Petersburg, Florida, inside Simon Property Group’s Tyrone Square Mall, on July 30, 2022 with the initial resident artists of the space. (Photo courtesy Zero Empty Spaces)
Since the pandemic, large swaths of office space across the United States have sat vacant. The downtown areas and other commercial centers that have enjoyed the built-in business that office workers bring have gone from bustling to bust.
At the beginning of 2024, 13.7% of office space was empty, while 7.6% of multifamily buildings, 4% of retail spaces and 5.6% of industrial spaces were vacant. As cities scramble to find creative new uses for these spaces, from climbing gyms to small-scale manufacturing to vertical farms, one organization in Florida has a stop-gap answer: Use the empty space for affordable artist studios.
Since launching in June 2019, Zero Empty Spaces has placed more than 600 artists in 10 commercial buildings in 10 cities. Most are in Florida but extend as far as Little Rock, Arkansas, and Boston.
Placements last about 18 months on average, with some lasting for years. Artists pay between $2.50 to $4.50 a square foot, including all utilities, for spaces that range from 80 to 250 square feet. Artists must commit to working on at least one piece a month and being in the space at least one day a week between noon and 5 p.m.
Prior to the pandemic, Zero Empty Spaces co-founders Evan Snow and Andrew Martineau had already been working on innovative ways to bolster the arts in Florida’s Broward County where they’re based.
“Our community has always been considered a cultural wasteland,” Snow explains. “We’re in between Miami to the south and Palm Beach to the north.”
Having spent plenty of time in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, which helped turn the city’s warehouses into a hotspot for the arts, Snow and Martineau decided to play on their community’s water-based strengths and host art shows in mansions that could only be accessible by boat.
“Long story short, we did that for four years up until COVID,” Snow says. By summer 2019, they had worked with more than 1,000 independent artists, many of whom lamented the perennial challenge of finding affordable studio space.
At the same time, brokers, developers and members of the county’s real estate community were asking Snow and Martineau to host art shows in their commercial spaces.
“We saw all these ‘For Lease’ signs and said, what if we can make [Broward County] one of the most affordable places for artists to create and collaborate?” Snow says. Equipped with Martineau’s background in retail development for shopping centers, which included vacancy management strategies that transformed vacant mall spaces into commission-free art galleries, the idea for Zero Empty Spaces was born.
The duo reached out to Fort Lauderdale’s mayor and shared their idea to activate vacant commercial spaces to create affordable artist studios until permanent tenants could be secured. The mayor suggested reaching out to the man who held the most property in downtown Fort Lauderdale at the time. He happened to have a whopping 19 vacancies.
Zero Empty Spaces brought in nine artists to fill one of the developer’s spaces, which had actually been an art studio originally. “We had one of the best attended grand openings in anything in Fort Lauderdale’s history,” Snow says of the event, which won local and national news coverage.
About three months into that activation, the landlord found a permanent tenant. “We just ask for a 30-day notice to vacate when that happens,” Snow says.
Zero Empty Space’s Boca Raton location is the largest single office facility in the state, according to Giana Pacinelli, director of communications for CP Group, the location’s commercial partner. She tells Next City that working with the organization “has allowed us to activate our vacancies while bringing a special amenity to our existing office tenants.”
Pacinelli says the tenants enjoy seeing the work of the 17 artists placed there as they move through the campus. They’ve ultimately developed their own relationships with the artists, even purchasing their work as gifts or for their personal collections. “The collaboration helps us develop a productive and creative ecosystem that tenants won’t find at other office buildings, giving us a competitive advantage,” she says.
Naturally, there are benefits enjoyed on the artists’ side as well.
The emerging, mid-career and established artists Zero Empty Spaces works with are able to afford studio or gallery space in popular parts of town that would otherwise be unattainable. And in the process, they can enjoy opportunities that might otherwise evade them.
The Fort Lauderdale gallery, for example, was located on a street that Snow compares to Rodeo Drive. “Artists would never have been able to afford [space] there,” he says. “Some of [our artists] have had tens of thousands of dollars of sales and made life-changing connections, gotten exposure to the press.”
Most recently, Zero Empty Spaces is working to expand beyond in-person events. They’re working to launch an online store so customers nationally and internationally can support their artists.
“It’s going to be another ‘win’ scenario that helps artists sell and get discovered,” Snow says.
This article has been corrected to reflect that Zero Empty Spaces is not a non-profit organization, to update the number of artists at the Boca Raton location, and to indicate that the Fort Lauderdale location was a gallery rather than a studio.
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Cinnamon Janzer is a freelance journalist based in Minneapolis. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, U.S. News & World Report, Rewire.news, and more. She holds an MA in Social Design, with a specialization in intervention design, from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Fine Art from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Vacant since the ’90s? Minneapolis pushes to reduce number of long-empty buildings
/in UncategorizedReprinted from: StarTribune Minneapolis Elliot Hughes
City officials and residents say owners of vacant buildings aren’t under enough pressure to restore their properties to occupancy amid a housing shortage. The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a measure Thursday meant to up enforcement.
This property in northeast Minneapolis is one of the longest to stay on the city’s registry of vacant properties. It was condemned in 1998 and placed on the registry in 2001. (Elliot Hughes/Star Tribune)
Some vacant buildings in Minneapolis sit empty and weather away for years, perhaps decades. As the time piles up, according to those who live next door to them, so can the nuisances and safety hazards.
Chimney bricks fall into neighboring yards. Rodents and birds congregate. Fires, fireworks, vandalism, drug use and overdoses ensue.
The Minneapolis City Council, at its regular meeting on Thursday, unanimously got behind an ordinance amendment that could more than triple the financial penalties — up to $24,000 a year — for owners of residential or commercial buildings that are designated as vacant and condemned, unless the owner restores it within a two- or three-year period.
Several council members praised the changes as offering important tools for fixing up hazardous properties. Council President Elliott Payne relayed an example of an elder-care facility that has been “sitting vacant since COVID” near a school and a park in the city’s Windom Park neighborhood.
“It’s been a real problem in my community,” Payne said. “It’s boarded up with squatters coming in on occasion.”
Minneapolis’ collection of 311 vacant and condemned properties is small in comparison to that of other American cities, which can number in the thousands. But more than half are clustered in the city’s predominantly Black North Side, driving down nearby property values and aggravating a shortage of affordable housing.
“Our residents know that those are homes that could be used by families or individuals who are in desperate need of housing or shelter,” City Council Member Robin Wonsley said at a recent committee meeting. “We know many of these properties are in Black, brown and working-class neighborhoods. This is a tool that would definitely help us reach some of our racial and economic goals as a city.”
In Minneapolis, all vacant and condemned buildings are placed on a registry. Property owners pay a flat fee of about $7,100 and the city boards them up and monitors them for trespassing and other issues.
Owners are also required to state a timeline for when the building can either return to code or be demolished. But the city has never required a deadline for doing so.
The proposal, written by Wonsley and Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, would require owners to restore buildings to code in two years, with a third-year option for those who have made headway but need additional time. Afterward, fines can quickly pile up before they total $24,000 a year.
“This is just a really, really great way for us to do something tangible that will impact the daily lives of residents in our city,” Council Member Aurin Chowdhury said.
The number of vacant and condemned Minneapolis buildings is down from the 1,500 that were empty at the outset of the Great Recession in 2008, according to Bryan Starry, who manages vacant and condemned buildings for the city. But the number of properties sitting in that condition today, now 311, is roughly unchanged over the past six years.
Of those properties, more than 130 have been on the list for three years or more. Some stretch as far back as 2001, and one was first condemned in 1998.
There is a range of reasons why owners let buildings sit empty to deteriorate, according to city officials and residents who spoke at the July 9 public hearing. Some owners may not have the funds for rehabilitation. Others may be waiting for an opportune time to make a move on their building as property values increase.
“The problem is that the current fine system provides no incentive to change anything,” Daniel Suitor, a tenant’s rights attorney, said at the hearing. “Seven or eight thousand dollars a year — if my property taxes say anything, the property’s appreciating more than that every year. Much more.”
That leaves problems for everyone else. After three years, vacant properties can reduce by about 1% the value of neighbors’ properties within 250 feet, and those within 500 feet by about 0.27%, according to a study by the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
The same study found that vacant properties can increase safety issues, fracture ties among neighbors and leave communities vulnerable to gentrification.
“It’s a stress on the neighborhood,” Ellison said in an interview. “When you have these inactive houses and the neighbors feel like they don’t have any influence over the condition of those houses, it really erodes the spirit of the block, which has ripple effects.”
Link to story: https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-proposal-would-mandate-annual-fines-of-up-to-24000-for-owners-of-vacant-buildings-that-go-unrestored/600381608?refresh=true
Detroit plans to harness solar power on vacant lots throughout the city
/in UncategorizedReprinted from AP U.S. News:
Trash and debris little an empty lot on Detroit’s eastside, Monday, June 24, 2024/ The eastside neighborhood is one of a few that are expected to receive solar arrays as part of Detroit’s efforts to remove blight and find uses for underpopulated areas in the city (AP photo/Corey Williams)
DETROIT (AP) — Patricia Kobylski remembers when there were lots of people living in her eastside Detroit neighborhood. There aren’t as many anymore — and haven’t been for a long time.
“Right now, on our side of the street there are probably only 10 houses. Should be 50, 60,” the 78-year-old Kobylski said Monday after the city announced a plan to bring to her neighborhood solar arrays, which are blocks of ground-based solar panels.
Detroit is using something it has plenty of — vacant land — to produce something the city needs — clean and relatively inexpensive energy.
Pending approval by the City Council, Kobylski’s Gratiot-Findlay neighborhood eventually will see solar arrays on about 23 acres (9.3 hectares) of land. Not far away, another eastside neighborhood is to get arrays on nearly 41 acres (16.5 hectares), while a third will get arrays on nearly 40 acres (16.1 hectares).
Five other neighborhoods are finalists to also get solar arrays. Resident groups had to apply to be considered for the program.
The city is looking to build solar energy arrays on about 200 acres (81 hectares). The arrays would produce enough clean energy to offset the electricity used currently by 127 municipal buildings.
Detroit will use $14 million from an existing utility fund for up-front costs that include acquiring and clearing the land. The solar fields are expected to ultimately save the city $4.4 million per year.
“We have seen property values and income tax revenues grow dramatically in other neighborhoods where the city has made investments,” Mayor Mike Duggan said. “I’m confident our $1.1 million-a-year investment in these long-forgotten neighborhoods will produce a real recovery in these communities.”
The city touts its Solar Neighborhoods project as a national model for finding solutions to climate change. Duggan revealed plans a year ago following a challenge by President Joe Biden for cities to use more solar power while taking advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides federal tax incentives of 30% or more of the costs to cover renewable energy.
Over the past year, neighborhood groups held meetings to consider hosting solar fields. Those selected will receive $15,000 to $25,000 in community benefits to pay for energy efficiency upgrades. They can choose to use the benefits for new windows, roof repairs, new energy efficient appliances, new furnaces and hot water heaters, better home insulation, smart thermostats, energy-efficient lighting and battery back-up for outages.
Duggan said he hopes to break ground on the project by the end of the year.
Donna Anthony, 63, also is in one of the three neighborhoods announced Monday. She wants to get new attic insulation, vinyl siding and a new generator for her home. Anthony also looks forward to not having vacant lots and abandoned houses nearby, which often become sites for illegal dumping.
“When you come outside you get depressed when you see all this trash being dropped,” Anthony said of discarded tires and construction materials. “You go out and clean it up and it’s right back there the next day.”
Under Duggan, the city has made leaps in stabilizing and fixing up neighborhoods that had been deteriorating and in advanced stages of blight. Primarily with federal funds at its disposal, Detroit has demolished at least 24,000 vacant structures since 2014, according to the mayor’s office. Hundreds of others have been transferred to the Detroit Land Bank which has fixed up many houses and resold them to families. Dozens of vacant lots — left by the razing of homes — are being sold to people living next door to maintain and beautify what otherwise would become overgrown, weedy eyesores.
Secure solar farms could also be an aesthetic benefit in these areas, according to Sarah Banas Mills, director of the Center for EmPowering Communities, Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan.
“There are not very many communities that would say ’You know, the thing that would make this better is a solar farm,’” Mills said. “A neighborhood might want a solar farm there to effectively fight illegal dumping. That’s a really unique way of thinking.”
“On more developed land, places that aren’t green field right now, solar is sometimes perceived as a negative change to the landscape,” Mills continued. “In places that already are industrial, it is as an improvement.”
About 633,000 people call Detroit home — more than a million fewer than the 1.8 million who lived in the city in the 1950s. What Detroit may lack in population, it makes up for in land. Currently, about 19 square miles (49 square kilometers) of the 139-square-mile (360-square-kilometers) city is vacant.
“The challenge with solar is that it’s an industrial investment,” said Anika Goss, chief executive of Detroit Future City, a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of the city’s residents through community and economic development. “Unlike trees or some sort of stormwater management, it has its downsides,” she continued. Since the panels absorb energy from the sun, they can also create heat islands — or parts of cities with higher average temperatures than the surrounding areas — “in places that might already have challenges with heat islands.”
Goss also said she is disappointed that the energy produced by the solar arrays will not be used to lower utility bills for residents in the selected neighborhoods.
“The checks that they’re giving as a community benefit for energy, I think that’s a good thing,” she said. “They can use it for window upgrades. They can use it for their own stormwater management. It’s not enough for a new roof, but it could be enough to put something in that could make their own home energy efficient.”
The city says 21 homeowners in the selected neighborhoods have chosen buy-outs to allow for demolition of their houses to make way for the arrays. Renters will receive the cost of relocating and 1.5 years of free rent when they move.
Link to article: https://apnews.com/article/detroit-solar-energy-array-which-neighborhoods-f84e5c4cc7c62fdc845bc74e901d637c
President’s Opinion – Marc Insul, President & Chief Operating Officer, Commercial Asset Preservation
/in UncategorizedHow long can we expect Red Lobster properties to remain vacant?
CAP Covers Properties in the Short or Long Term
At Commercial Asset Preservation (CAP) we provide services for more vacant commercial property than anyone in the United States. Not all of the locations that CAP services can be considered prime real estate. It is not uncommon for a property to be serviced by CAP for many years as the property owner tries to find a next life for the building. In my conversations with the owners of closed Red Lobster locations, I am hearing that these properties are attractive to potential new tenants. Does that mean that a transaction will occur quickly in each case, that remains to be seen.
Whether a property is vacant for days or years, protecting and maintaining the property is crucial in retaining value. Commercial Asset Preservation provides property owners with guidance and services to ensure their vacant property retains value and has a favorable upside.
If you own vacant commercial real estate let CAP cover and preserve your property.
Learn more about the vacant property services offered by CAP by visiting https://www.commercialpreservation.com/vacant-property-services/ or by emailing inquiries@commercialpreservation.com.
Social media flashmobs used to vandalize property, plan drag racing: A primer on how to protect your property
/in UncategorizedYou thought your vacant commercial property was secure. Perhaps you were transitioning to a sale or maybe renovating for a new tenant. You locked doors and used outside security lighting to ward off vandals. Then, the local police call you reporting repeated crimes or maybe the building department in some far away state starts issuing violations. Bam, it hits the Internet hard and fast. You see your property on social media. You have gone viral, and not in a good way. Videos of how to break in are being posted and vandals are brazenly photographing themselves inside your facility. Laughing, doing damage, and posting to social media their escapades for everyone to see (and worse, copy). Wait, where was security? You hired guards to prevent this from happening. Despite securing windows and doors, alerting local law enforcement about the vacancy of the building, and employing security guards, social media promoted vandalism was the norm.
CAP was contacted for help
Asked how we could help, Commercial Asset Preservation (CAP) dispatched a local locksmith and general maintenance contractor. Doors were reinforced with L brackets from top to bottom. The entire building was boarded. CAP consulted with local fire officials to make sure the security measures were within fire and safety codes. Often homeless individuals may take up residence in a vacant building. And, there are strict rules about removing vagrants and their personal property. Social services, along with local law enforcement may be needed to clear the grounds. Winter is a particularly challenging time for property owners dealing with the homeless as the desire to gain entrance, away from the elements, is heightened.
LONG BEACH, CA – JUNE 01: After rioters looted, destroyed and burned businesses along Pine Ave. Sunday evening, a worker puts up sheets of plywood over windows of a business while California National Guard members patrol the streets Monday, June 1, 2020 in Long Beach, CA. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
No trespass signs by themselves do not always have the teeth needed to dissuade such attacks. Speaking with CAP’s Maureen Fitisemanu, a Supervisor of Commercial Services, she indicated a stronger deterrent within the law is a no-trespass criminal affidavit paired with the threat of prosecution. This seldom-used section of the penal code is geographically specific and should be discussed with local officials.
Off to the races – on your property
Another property was attracting large crowds to a vacant store, featuring weekends filled with throngs of drag racing youth. To deter and prevent these activities, CAP installed cement barriers, chains, and bollards at entrances and coordinated with local law enforcement to place signs at strategic locations. That action put an end to the congregating youth. This tactic also works to deter overnight parking by long-haul truckers. Another problem that can be solved by blocking property access is the illegal dumping of trash, as well as construction and building materials, a shortcut unscrupulous contractors might take to save disposal fees. Maintaining awareness about the vacant facility is key. CAP contractors routinely visit properties, looking for changing conditions from the prior inspection.
Annoyance as a defense
One of CAP’s clients found themselves dealing with drug users violating the property, sleeping at the facility, and creating large amounts of hazardous trash. One solution used to deter the illegal occupiers is called a Mosquito Anti-Loitering Alarm. Per the website, “Using high-frequency sound, the Mosquito alarm helps to reduce anti-social behavior such as loitering, vandalism, graffiti and violence.” CAP uses specialized alarm vendors to install, operate, and manage these systems.
While the challenges of keeping and protecting your commercial assets are daunting, the tactics and services CAP provides will ensure well-managed, thoroughly documented, and safe properties for the community at large.