Amanda Blinkhorn reports on five weeks in the life of a meanwhile project and finds out why this movement to turn empty shops into hubs of innovation continues to gather momentum
One of the greatest visible signs of the recession is the increasing number of empty boarded-up shops on our high streets. They are depressing to look at, expensive for the abandoned landlords to maintain, and yet another tantalising kick in the teeth for hundreds of artists, artisans, and wannabe entrepreneurs who are desperate for a place to show and sell their wares.
Now an imaginative match-making service, which enables people to test out their new ideas in empty shops, is bringing these dead spaces back to life. Community interest company, Meanwhile Space, scours the country for boarded up shops and works with local authorities and private landlords to enable creative, community-minded people to use them as a free springboard. In return, commercial landlords are relieved of the burden of paying business rates on their empty shops and can relax between tenants knowing their property is safe, secure and being made good use of.
Here’s how Meanwhile Space’s latest project, The Coming Soon Club, turned an abandoned tool hire shop into a bustling meeting place, rehearsal room and fashion emporium – all in the space of five weeks.
WEEK ONE
Alison Minto, project manager for Meanwhile Space’s Coming Soon Club, receives the keys to numbers 5-7 Wembley Hill Road, a former tool hire shop on an unprepossessing triangle under the shadow of Wembley Stadium. A busy road and unhelpful crossing points successfully isolate it from the more bustling shops a hundred yards away.
With no parking and little to entice shoppers to peak through the metal shutters, any passing trade does just that, passes by and keeps on going. Undaunted, Alison spends a busy weekend cleaning, painting and covering the bare walls with white plaster board. By Sunday afternoon she has taken delivery of an Ikea sofa, a borrowed desk and a dozen chairs. The cafe two doors down is curious and encouraging, just so long as Alison sticks to her word about buying croissants, not selling them.
WEEK TWO
Alison hangs a banner outside the shop inviting passers-by to suggest new uses for the shop. Some are unprintable and the banner is stolen within a day. A more successful story in the local paper and activity on Twitter and Facebook ensure a trickle of emails and visitors. People begin to pop in and fill in the multicoloured postcards asking what they would like to see the shop turned into and what they would do with the space if it were theirs.
Ideas include turning the vast storage and workshop area into an indoor car boot sale, creating something to get people talking, a swap shop and coffee shop, with music and dancing, using the vast picture shop windows in the main shop to open up a vintage clothes shop, and African food stall, a sweet shop and drawing in the parents and children on the school run with a place for children to play. Others want to set up a literacy and maths homework club and opening up a cafe with a book club and film shows.
WEEK THREE
The wall is now healthily decorated with postcards and a steady stream of potential shopkeepers pop in to ask advice. Euan Mills (part of the Meanwhile Space team) sets up his table in the centre of the room and begins four days of one on one coaching sessions. The building is buzzing as fledgling music video maker Glenroy Ranger rehearses his two minute pitch in one corner while Jaine Lunn who is setting up a bicycle rescue and repair business, susses out storage and workshop space while a steady queue for Euan’s advice builds inside the shop.
The shop’s huge picture windows draw a crowd as Alison’s first protege, Dorinda Muir, who took up hat making after years working for the NHS creates a magnificent display of hats and fascinators in time for Derby Day.
WEEK FOUR
Ben Paul, of architects Neu, holds a signage workshop for a dozen wannabe shopkeepers and explains the four Ps of successful retail (product, price, place and promotion) and advises on planning, health and safety and the practicalities of setting up a cheap, mobile, temporary shop. Afterwards Alison hands out the chalk and is amazed by the calligraphy skills of her new team of shopkeepers as they use A-boards and banners to let the world know that The Coming Soon Club is open for business.
WEEK FIVE
With Dorinda still doing a roaring trade in her celebratory hats as the wedding, jubilee, and Olympics season is in full swing, a newly established party planning business set up a jubilee window display and a theatre company take over the vast workshop area of the shop and following Dorinda into the space is The Great Menagerie – two creative young women whose vintage fashion pieces and reclaimed jewellery have already graced the pages of Elle. The Coming Soon Club has well and truly arrived – the shop is now occupied and Alison prepares for the next stage – moving her proteges into a meanwhile space of their own before the temporary meanwhile lease runs out at the end of the summer.
MEANWHILE SPACE: HOW AND WHY IT WORKS
Emily Berwyn, director at Meanwhile Space, explains how even the grey cloud of recession can have a silver lining: ‘There are more people out there with exciting business, arts and community ideas than ever before. Wembley has lots of space to offer from shops and warehouses to empty development sites and large retail spaces.
‘It makes sense to try to pair the people with ideas with the spaces in a way that benefits the community. That way they get to test their ideas without too much risk and potentially go on to become more permanent fixtures in the future.
‘People think it’s hard to find temporary spaces to run interesting projects in, but actually it’s easier than ever before.’
- Read the full article in this month’s New Start, out next week.
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