Using Vacant Commercial Spaces As Affordable Artist Studios Is a Win-Win

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.

Read more at Next City.