age of creatives.

January 9th, 2007 is the day that Apple announced the first iPhone.

Released in June, the device included the ability to make calls, take pictures and conveniently fits into the palm of your hand.  I don’t believe any of us can imagine life without it. Between paying bills in an instant to ordering food and groceries to be delivered, who can recall a time or understand how we navigated the world before the smartphone was invented? 

These hand-held computers have transformed many of us into digital creatives.

Everyone gets to be a news reporter, snapping photos of the day’s events and sharing it with the world.  Everyone gets to be a photographer, capturing the sun rises and reflections in rain on the pavement.  Everyone gets to tell a story.

This creativity is flowing to commercial real estate as well in the form of pop ups. 

A pop up tenant is an occupant that takes a short term deal on a space that has been a challenging position for an owner to secure a permanent Tenant in. 

Zero Empty Spaces is an affordable option for artists wanting a studio outside of their home AND assists real estate owners of empty retail spaces bring a new energy to their property. 

My sister in law, Jillian, is a multi media artist in South Florida who posted on Instagram about her new studio space. An artist in residence, she is there for a handful of hours a day creating until another artist comes in for the next block of time.  

One of Zero Empty Spaces cofounders, Evan Snow, shared with me their installation of the artist studios in a space that was vacant for 5 years, filled the space with new energy.  Their occupancy piqued a potential Tenant’s interest in the space for a longer term.  Sometimes it just takes a new perspective to present the vacant space in a new way.

Fostering ways for people to discover and experience with one another is something I am passionate about.  

Pop Up Grocer is a traveling pop-up grocery store that showcases over one hundred and fifty innovative food, beverage, pet, home and body care brands. To date, they have popped up in Los Angeles, New York and Austin, markets historically known to brands showcased inside as viable customer bases. It’s a play out of the Warby Parker book. 

Warby Parker started as an online only eyewear company that wanted to charge less for glasses and prescription lenses than the monopoly that is Luxxotica. Shipping multiple frames online, customers would return the frames they didn’t like and chose the one they did to have lenses created for them. What Warby Parker soon realized is that they had location data for their customers and were able to position locations near where their customers lived. 

In the United States alone, ecommerce sales are expected to surpass $740 billion by 2023.

What do retail shopping center owners do with their vacant retail spaces? 

POP UPS!

Contact us today to learn more about these types of Tenants.