{"id":343159,"date":"2026-06-02T17:21:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343159\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T17:21:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T17:21:21","slug":"artist-studio-planned-at-former-half-price-books-location-in-downtown-berkeley-revitalization-effort-local-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/343159\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist studio planned at former Half Price books location in Downtown Berkeley revitalization effort | Local Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zero Empty Spaces, an initiative dedicated to revitalizing vacant storefronts into community spaces, plans to open an artist studio and gallery pop-up space in the former Half Price Books location<\/a>\u00a0in Downtown Berkeley this July as part of a larger initiative to fill vacancies downtown.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zero Empty Spaces offers a \u201cwin-win\u201d deal, according to Evan Snow, co-founder and managing partner of Zero Empty Spaces; it takes commercial real estate spaces and creates temporary, affordable units for artists to collaborate within a community, outside of their residences, while helping property owners maintain their buildings and create a \u201cbuzz\u201d on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of artists were coming to us saying, \u2018where are studio spaces at\u2019 \u2026 let alone (spaces that are) not in the worst part of town, where the rent is generally the cheapest,\u201dSnow said.<\/p>\n

This is Zero Empty Spaces\u2019 first location in California. Originally based in Florida, the initiative, founded in 2019, has 35 locations across five states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the Berkeley space, Snow envisions that the studios and galleries will function as a third space in the community where residents can discover and be inspired by local artists, as well as support them financially.The artist studios are planned to be open to the public from noon to 5 p.m., as well as hosting other events such as workshops, nonprofit collaborations and potlucks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The spaces are leased out on a temporary basis, until the property receives a permanent tenant. From there, Zero Empty Spaces works with the artists to move them to another available space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDowntown Berkeley is very interested in reducing the amount of vacant store fronts, and there is already conversation about us activating subsequent spaces,\u201d Snow said.<\/p>\n

But according to Reuel Cooke, economic development project coordinator at the city of Berkeley, implementing property owner buy-in is often easier said than done. To create affordable units, the property owner must agree to lease the space to artist groups for for little to no rent, which can pose a challenge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vacancy is not a new issue for Downtown Berkeley, and\u201cdifficult economic conditions, including high interest rates, tariffs, and sharply increasing construction material costs\u201d have often contributed to stalled economic development,\u00a0said\u00a0District 4 Councilmember Igor Tregub in an email. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the district\u2019s own struggles<\/a> filling storefront vacancies since the pandemic, recent initiatives \u2014 including the Zero Empty Spaces pop-up \u2014 may mark a turning point for the neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the latest city of Berkeley economic dashboard report, the average commercial storefront vacancy percentages in Downtown Berkeley dropped to 9.7% this year, the lowest since 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuing this momentum, my office is currently working on \u2026 measures to enhance public safety, address long-term commercial vacancies in the downtown and throughout our commercial districts, and ensure that our downtown is on its way toward being a vibrant, accessible destination in which small businesses, the arts, and other community-serving uses can thrive,\u201d Tregub said in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zero Empty Spaces, an initiative dedicated to revitalizing vacant storefronts into community spaces, plans to open an artist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7,2633,141208,553,12492,14328,143,145,144,141209,141207],"class_list":["post-343159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-california","tag-downtown-berkeley","tag-evan-snow","tag-florida","tag-half-price-books","tag-igor-tregub","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-reuel-cooke","tag-zero-empty-spaces"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}