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)

The pandemic hollowed out our cities, leaving empty downtowns and office buildings in its wake. With galleries and art venues closed and disposable income at a low, the arts sector took a major hit.

What if we killed two birds with one stone by using our cities’ vacant commercial space as affordable artist studios and galleries? That’s the idea behind Zero Empty Spaces. Since its launch in June 2019, the Florida-based organization has placed more than 600 artists in 10 commercial buildings in 10 cities. Most are in the group’s home state of Florida but they’ve extended as far as Little Rock, Arkansas and Boston.

“We now have what we believe to be the first art studio in the world in a former Burberry store – located next to a Louis Vuitton in the Natick Mall in Massachusetts, the largest mall in New England,” Evan Snow, co-founder of Zero Empty Spaces tells Next City. “Somebody is walking out of a Louis Vuitton store, spending tens of thousands of dollars and saying, ‘Oh, what’s this artist in the window doing here?’ And we’ve had people buy artwork after leaving the Louis store.”

To learn more about the organization’s model and its work expanding to new cities, listen to the episode below or subscribe to the Next City podcast on Apple, Spotify or Goodpods. And read the original Next City article, by Cinnamon Janzer, here.