As an artist, you get familiar with teaching yourself how to do things, something Emmanuel and Fancy Lanier-Duncan know very well.
The couple, who make up Twin Cities-based hip-hop duo iLLism, have done it all: They’ve directed and starred in their own music videos, designed their own websites, and hosted their own photo shoots. And they’ve helped others do it, too—over time, the Lanier-Duncans found that they were functioning almost like a record label.
“We need a space to do this out of,” Fancy remembers thinking. That’s when Emmanuel drove past a “for rent” sign off Minnehaha Avenue in Minneapolis. They inquired, and today, 4024 E. 46th St. is home to The Legacy Building, a creative community hub with a gallery space, recording studio, rehearsal room, and more, with the Lanier-Duncans at the helm.
The Twin Cities is full of buildings like this one, where enterprising artists saw a need, saw a space, and took it upon themselves to bring their visions to life for the creative community. Where some see unoccupied, abandoned, or otherwise empty buildings, creatives see potential. In neighborhoods from Minneapolis’ Northeast Arts District to St. Paul’s Frogtown, garages become galleries, warehouses become studio spaces, and stages emerge out of emptiness.
“It feels very hopeful to think about the ways we can reuse and repurpose things,” says Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard for the Arts. “I really believe that’s part of the artist’s superpower, seeing opportunity in unloved and overlooked things.”
For example, London’s Tate Modern, one of the world’s most well-known contemporary art galleries, was once a power plant. In Milan, the Fondazione Prada art center is located in a former distillery. And in St. Paul, Springboard for the Arts has enlivened a building that, for decades, was inhabited by a used car dealership.
Photo by Thai Phan Quang
Zabel explains that, for most of its life, the multifaceted arts nonprofit had occupied a Lowertown warehouse (another reused space). But by coincidence, the team chose to host an event at 262 University Ave. W., the empty parking lot having caught their eye. “We had kind of noticed at that time, ‘Oh, this is accidentally preserved public space in the middle of University Avenue,'” Zabel says. “[It was] that type of bad urban planning of the past that said, ‘Sure, make a giant parking lot in the middle of this neighborhood, in the middle of this small business corridor.’ By accident, they had preserved space that could be made into public space.”
Springboard converted most of the parking lot into a wide green space, with a garden and a walking path that becomes a neighborhood skating rink in the winter. The big garage building is now Springboard’s community hall, which welcomes artist markets, fairs, and festivals, but can also be used for plays and conferences. Topping it all off: a beautiful rooftop deck overlooking the neighborhood.
But before any of those renovations started, the organization welcomed the community into the space.
“We really started from scratch, and said, ‘This building is usable now, in its car dealership form,’ and we just invited the neighborhood to do whatever they wanted for a year,” Zabel says. “We wanted people to be able to see what it had been. It wasn’t about erasing what had been here, but rather trying to take something that had [once] had a pretty extractive relationship with the neighborhood—environmentally, economically, and from a community perspective—and turn it into something that was a source of repair, health, and joy.”
The goal of transforming unused spaces into something more energizing is also behind the city of Minneapolis’ new Arts & Culture Vibrant Storefronts Program, which uses city funding to subsidize rent for creatives in vacant buildings throughout downtown, Uptown, and other parts of the city. Five awardees now have storefronts in the Harmon Place Historic District near Loring Park: Blackbird Revolt, Black Business Enterprises, Twin Cities Pride, Flavor World, and Skntones.
“Creatives need places to congregate with other creatives, to share ideas, and to sharpen their craft,” says Terresa Moses, owner, co-founder, and creative director of Blackbird Revolt, an abolitionist design studio that was completely remote for the past eight years before opening at 1128 Harmon Place.
Having a physical location at Harmon Place has allowed neighbor Black Business Enterprises to significantly expand its programming and engagement with the community as well. “We’ve been able to host more events, provide a vibrant and welcoming space for people to gather, and offer a creative outlet for local artists,” explains Nancy Korsah, founder, president, and CEO. Korsah notes there are several barriers to securing a space, from the high cost of rent and zoning restrictions to a lack of funding opportunities. There are also the challenges of navigating the necessary legal and bureaucratic processes to obtain and maintain a space.
“The support we’ve received has reinforced our belief in the importance of accessible creative spaces, and we hope to see more initiatives that make it easier for artists and entrepreneurs to secure locations where they can bring their visions to life,” she says.
Even within existing arts spaces, artists have a knack for reenergizing and making use of empty space. Take Public Functionary, for example, a studio program and gallery inside the Northrup King Building in Northeast Minneapolis. Public Functionary supports young, emerging artists of color, and after 15 years in a different Northeast Minneapolis arts space, it opened the current studio (split between nine artists) in 2019.
Photo by Uche Iroegbu
“It’s not that the Northrup King Building was abandoned—it was very hard to get in there, actually,” says Tricia Heuring, artistic director for Public Functionary. “It’s more so that our program really started opening up access for artists who typically were not able to access the building.”
Prior to the organization’s move, the Northrup King Building had an unused downstairs space that was serving as furniture storage—Public Functionary hoped to use this space to exhibit the artists’ work. “Our operations director took a leaf blower and a hazmat suit and blew out all the dust from that space,” says Heuring, with a laugh. “Once you use [a space], you can kind of see what’s possible.” Eventually, the Public Functionary team built the walls, put in the lighting, and turned that dusty basement into a functional gallery,
gathering area, and cafe.
“Sometimes when people think about reuse, they’re thinking about historic buildings, or beautiful architecture. This [used car garage] is a cinderblock square,” says Springboard’s Zabel, chuckling. But reuse isn’t about only preserving architectural marvels—it’s about recognizing the potential. A parking lot, in the right hands, can become a flourishing community space.
“It’s a project that I think has shown me—and all of us—what an artist’s hand can do,” Zabel says. “We can see the opportunity in these big challenges. We can see something that other people have written off and use it to hold space for a neighborhood.”
Tear Down or Build Out?
Depending on the needs of the arts organization, transforming an existing space isn’t always the most affordable, predictable, or even practical route.
“Often, [when] renovating a space, contractors come in and say, ‘Well, we don’t know what we’re going to find when we open it up’… There are so many unknowns, where if you tear down and build new, it’s a lot easier to control,” says Megan McCready, deputy director of Midway Contemporary Art, a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of and reflection upon visual art. Building new also means buying more, which is, of course, enticing to those providers. “And so, it sort of becomes this collective idea that it’s easier and more efficient to just tear down and build new,” she continues.
Not every existing space is turnkey. Midway’s journey to 1509 Marshall St. NE, where it moved last July, involved a tremendous amount of work—moving duct work, installing steel beams, and fighting with concrete panels. But the four members of the artist-run gallery, founded in 2001 in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood (hence the name), knew they wanted to preserve and renovate the building, originally a limousine garage, rather than knocking it down.
Courtesy of Midway Contemporary Art
“From the beginning, we were really interested in thinking about how to work sustainably and [be] environmentally conscious,” McCready says. Midway worked with the Berlin-based architecture group B+, which specializes in adaptive methods and reuse, to help bring the vision to life.
There is also a very real environmental aspect to reuse—think of all the carbon that’s released during the construction of a new building or the waste that goes into a landfill during demolition. “But also, you lose all of that… energy that exists in a space that comes from all the history of the different uses and tenants and businesses,” McCready says.
Courtesy of Midway Contemporary Art
It’s a lot of work just to preserve a spot on a map, and you’ll have to find people who are willing to work with you, who can think outside the box, and who see the vision. But McCready says the response they’ve received from neighbors and community members shows that people can sense and appreciate it—and they value that positive, thoughtful, intentional approach.
“Seeing those familiar buildings—even if their use has changed, or the facade has changed, or they painted it a different color—there’s still something comforting, that a certain building is still there,” she says. “Because it’s part of history that you’ve experienced.”
When to Visit
The Legacy Building: 4024 E. 46th St., Minneapolis
Events and space rentals are open to the public—visit thelegacybuilding.org.
Midway Contemporary Art: 1509 NE Marshall St., Minneapolis
Open Wednesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Public Functionary: 1500 Jackson St. NE, Studio 144, Minneapolis
Located inside the Northrup King Building. For exhibit and event schedules, visit publicfunctionary.org.
Springboard for the Arts: 262 University Ave. W., St. Paul
Open Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
