Goldman Properties is gearing up to open its newest art venue in time for Art Basel, right next to the Wynwood Doors.
In August, Goldman paid $12 million to acquire the Wynwood Doors, an art installation adjacent to the Wynwood Walls at 2516 Northwest Second Avenue. Included in that sale were two connected properties, one of which is vacant land and the other a small industrial building.
Now, the real estate company has announced plans to transform both properties into a new art space called the Wynwood Walls Garden, which will debut December 1 with pieces from six different artists. The industrial building’s walls will be used as more canvas space in the short term, with a restaurant or retail tenant planned in the future.
Jessica Goldman Srebnick, CEO of Goldman Properties
“We’re addicted to art,” Jessica Goldman Srebnick, CEO of Goldman Properties, told The Real Deal. “It’s so important to incorporate interesting elements into real estate, and for us, art is something we’ve always incorporated into our projects over the course of the last 47 years.”
Together, the two adjacent properties Goldman acquired total roughly 0.43 acres. The vacant land, at 260 Northwest 26th Street, is a small grassy lot that currently houses a handful of decorative boulders similar to the ones placed in the Wynwood Doors.
For its transformation, Goldman plans to install four to five shipping containers stacked on top of each other with large murals painted on their sides. The company also hired PlusUrbia, a local design group, to completely alter the lot’s landscaping with deck space, along with concrete and sand areas.
The unifying theme for the new space and the 14 murals in Goldman’s Art Basel program is “Walls of Change.” She said the idea is that art is a force of change, especially for a community.
“There is nothing better that describes what’s happening in Wynwood,” she said.
Pichi & Avo, a pair of Spanish artists that frequently juxtapose Greek Gods with graffiti, will create large murals on the closed containers.
In addition, two other artists will paint the wall that separates the new space from the Wynwood Doors. Those artists are eL Seed, a French-Tunisian man whose works often incorporate Arabic calligraphy, and Hueman, a woman from California whose graffiti is abstract and psychedelic.
Goldman will connect the Doors and the new space by punching a hole through that wall, which will split it into two equally sized canvases.
As for the small industrial property at 266 Northwest 26th Street, Goldman Srebnick said the building’s walls will be used as a canvas for two artists: Case and Cryptik. She said the art will stay up even when a restaurant or retail tenant is eventually chosen.
“It’s not just a private collection,” Goldman Srebnick said about the new installation. “This is something for the public.”