Meantime Inc.

Meantime believes that every vacant street-facing commercial space in urban communities is a missed opportunity for creativity, entrepreneurship and the building of local wealth and well-being. Working between the real estate industry, city government, building owners and neighborhood stakeholders, our mission is to activate vacant spaces in order to facilitate connections, test ideas, reach new audiences and support local economies.

Vibrant street activity is crucial to the health and life of cities. In many urban environments, however, economic and regulatory pressures create conditions in which ground level spaces designated for retail and commercial uses sit underused or vacant for long periods of time. While landlords wait for long-term leases with larger, more established businesses, these papered-over storefronts deactivate streetscapes for neighborhood residents and visitors. The pandemic accelerated this trend, increasing the shift toward online shopping and working from home causing further proliferation of ground floor vacancies. Meantime seeks to encourage unexpected and undervalued sources of creative activation by filling vacant storefront spaces with programming.

We aim to be broad in its ability to promote new ideas for urban street-facing real estate through three core programs: advocacy, storefront initiatives and events. Key tools include leading conversations, providing technical assistance and deploying pop-up programming models to reconnect neighborhood communities with the existing untapped resources within our cities.