More than 20 artists are looking for a place for their artwork after learning they’ll need to vacate their studios in Legacy Place, an open-air shopping and dining center in Palm Beach Gardens, by Sept. 26.
The news is a surprise but not a shock. The artists knew as tenants of Zero Empty Spaces, a company that sublets vacant commercial space to artists, that they might need to move with short notice.
The Legacy Place suite was once a spa and will become a spa once more. But for six years, it’s been home to an assortment of artists.
The studios are as unique as the artists, down meandering hallways adorned with art that spills out of the rooms onto the walls. The space is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. seven days a week, but that ends Sept. 20.
READ MORE: 'Zero Empty Spaces' Keeps Opening Artist Studio Spaces During Pandemic — And Artists Keep Coming
In one of their last charitable acts, the Legacy Place artists opened their studios for a sale and raffle Sept. 10 benefiting the Kids Cancer Foundation.
Called “Paint the World Gold: Artists for Childhood Cancer Awareness,” the show featured works inspired by the gold ribbon that symbolizes childhood cancer and offered tours of the artists’ studios.
Heather Bergstrom, an artist and instructor from Royal Palm Beach, organized the benefit, which drew dozens of supporters, including Sandy Erb of Kids Cancer Foundation.
Music by acoustic guitarist Vincent Kyle welcomed guests. Refreshments were provided by the site’s newest artist, Stephanie Derra, with help from her partner Christian Wegener.
Derra, who jokes she’s the Harry Potter of Zero Empty Spaces because she took the leftover space in the kitchen — like Harry’s cupboard bedroom under the stairs — has been at Legacy Place for only a few months.
Now she’ll have to move.
Bringing life to empty storefronts
Zero Empty Spaces, cofounded by Andrew Martineau and Evan Snow in Broward County in 2019, drew inspiration from Miami’s Wynwood Arts District, which turned empty warehouses into art centers.
Snow and Martineau persuaded landlords with vacant retail space in Florida cities including Fort Myers, Dania Beach, St. Petersburg and Fort Lauderdale, plus in Natick, Mass., and Richmond, Va., to turn dead space into lively artist studios.
Everyone involved accepts that the landlord eventually may find tenants willing to pay fair market value.
Until then, the spaces become cultural hubs, offering far more curb appeal than empty suites with “for lease” signs in the window.
Artists at Legacy Place pay $3 per square foot for their space, including utilities. Studios range in size from about 96 square feet to 250 square feet for the largest space. The low-cost studios have become so popular, there’s a waiting list, Martineau said.
But for his clients — after six years many are friends — at Legacy Place, Martineau is pursuing another space. And he says he is close to an agreement with a new landlord in the Lake Park area.
“It’s sad,” Jerilyn Brown said of the upcoming move. “But Zero is working on a new space and we have confidence in them.”
Meet the Legacy Place artists
Bergstrom, who organized the Kids Cancer fundraiser, is inspired by nature, especially flowers and birds.
“I’m a Christian artist,” Bergstrom said. “I like to show God’s glory in my work.”
Her “Flying Ace” won Best in Show from the Jupiter Art Committee. The town bought the painting to hang in the main lobby of Town Hall.
Jerilyn Brown of West Palm Beach has had a studio at Legacy Place’s Suite 140 for more than two years. The community of artists, the public events, the teaching that happens on site create an energy that’s inspiring and draws her to the space, even though she has a studio in her garage at home.
Anthony Burks — he moved into Legacy Place on Day 1 — is working on a series of works featuring African American cowboys for an upcoming show in Detroit.
Born in Lake Worth and raised in West Palm Beach’s Pleasant City neighborhood, Burks lives in West Palm Beach’s Northwood neighborhood and fulfilled a lifelong dream in 2021 when the Norton Museum of Art acquired two of his pieces.
He has been a full-time artist since about 2011 when he was laid off from his 9-to-5 job. The visions that inspire his incredibly lifelike renderings of people and animals are God-given, he said.
A statewide impact
ZES has opened 33 businesses, mostly in Florida, and has projects in Massachusetts, Arkansas and Maryland. Not all remain open, but that’s the nature of the business. The success of the program is in the numbers: Martineau said Zero Empty Spaces has helped more than 800 artists generate sales of more than $1.4 million over their residencies at the studio/galleries.
The company’s other Palm Beach County space is at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus. The sprawling office building — the largest in Florida, and the former home of IBM — is now bursting with art, with nearly 20 studios. It also hosts artwork on loan from the Boca Museum and art shows by local groups, such as the Palm Beach Watercolor Society and Lynn University’s faculty and students.
Outside at BRIC, art has spilled onto the lawn with “Rocket,” the monumental sculpture by Hubert Phipps and one of the largest outdoor sculptures chosen for a public art initiative in Palm Beach County.
Legacy Place artists who will be on the move in the next few weeks include Bergstrom, Brown, Burks, Derra, Ross and Ilene Gruber Adams, Nancy Blaschke, Bonnie Bruner, Sue Carlson, Arielle Charris, Judith Gaggero, Lashica Hardy, Erica Kyle, Lupe Lawrence, Julia Longwell, Carol Moon, Astrid Mora, Louis Schneiderman, Faith Schwack, Deborah Smith, Joanna Wasserman, Clifton G. Webb and Patrick Williams.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
