The Old Half Price Books on Shattuck Is Selling Local Art Until the Building Finds a Permanent Tenant

The lease at 2036 Shattuck Avenue was written to end. The former Half Price Books at the corner of Shattuck and Addison is now Zero Empty Spaces Berkeley, a room full of local art and handmade goods. It holds one of downtown's most prominent corners only until the building signs a long-term tenant. The grand opening was set for Saturday, Nov. 7, together with a free two-day art fair scheduled through Sunday. If you plan to buy holiday gifts there, the timing of the lease matters as much as what's on the walls.

An 8,000-square-foot corner, rented by the cubicle

The bookstore closed in November 2025 after 20 years on the corner. Berkeleyside reported that it left "an 8,000-square-foot hole in the heart of downtown Berkeley." Zero Empty Spaces, a company founded in 2019 that turns vacant retail space into creative space, chose this storefront for its first California project. It has activated 34 spaces in five states.

The terms Berkeleyside reported in August explain how the room works:

• 24 studios, each 96 to 156 square feet, inside the former bookstore
• $4 per square foot, month to month, which puts most studios between $500 and $600 a month
• No commission. Zero Empty Spaces covers utilities, permitting and building maintenance and takes no cut of art sales
• Public hours were announced as noon to 5 p.m. daily, so artists can sell directly to visitors
• Each artist must use the space at least one day a week

The Downtown Berkeley Association's launch announcement says the Berkeley location departs from the company's usual studio model. It runs as a retail arts marketplace and gallery that sells artwork, handcrafted goods, design products, apparel, books, home goods and prints through individual vendor spaces and curated installations. In practice, the same storefront serves as a workspace for the artists and a shop for everyone else.

What the building allows on the shelves

The space limits what can be made in it, and that shapes what you can buy there. Berkeleyside reported that the storefront lacks high-grade ventilation, so sawdust-heavy woodworking, spray paint and poured epoxy resin are not allowed. Ceramicists can shape and glaze but have no kiln, and photographers with large lighting setups don't fit the space.

"Generally, it's for visual artists and painters," co-founder Evan Snow told Berkeleyside. "So acrylic, oil, mixed media, assemblage, collage, textile, watercolors." Fashion designers, jewelry makers and quilters are also eligible.

The company's Berkeley artist page lists Annetta Lipman, Puanani Owan and Stephen Gerstman. Owan's profile describes work in inks, watercolors, colored pencils, markers, crayons and mixed-media collage. Gerstman's profile describes mostly oil paintings, often figurative and in an outsider-art, art-brut vein. When the space held an open house in August, Berkeley pet-portrait painter Mariana Moreno-Gonzalez was among the artists touring it. "Being around other mediums is always great," she told Berkeleyside. "I think art needs community."

The opening weekend was billed on Eventbrite as the Berkeley Artist Open. The listing described a free fair on Nov. 7 and 8, noon to 6 p.m. both days, with Bay Area artists on site to sell their own work. The ribbon cutting was scheduled for Saturday evening, 5 to 8 p.m.

The lease has a clock in it

The arrangement depends on the landlord. Gordon Commercial Real Estate Services owns the building and offered the space at a discounted rate for an initial six-month run. The DBA's announcement adds that the six months began in August 2026, after which the lease goes month to month. Six months from August ends in early 2027.

The Daily Californian described the model plainly. Spaces are leased temporarily until the property signs a permanent tenant, and then Zero Empty Spaces works with the artists to move them to another available space. So the room exists because the building is between long-term tenants, and it is set up to end when that changes.

The same Daily Californian article explains why setups like this are rare. Reuel Cooke, an economic development project coordinator for the City of Berkeley, told the paper that property-owner buy-in is often hard to get, because the owner has to agree to lease to artist groups for little or no rent. District 4 Councilmember Igor Tregub pointed to high interest rates, tariffs and rising construction material costs as factors that have stalled development downtown.

Snow suggested this corner may not be the last. "Downtown Berkeley is very interested in reducing the amount of vacant store fronts, and there is already conversation about us activating subsequent spaces," he told the Daily Californian. The project brought together Zero Empty Spaces, the Downtown Berkeley Association, Visit Berkeley, the City's Office of Economic Development and Gordon Commercial. "It's been a beautiful multi-stakeholder collaboration," Snow told Berkeleyside.

The block it sits on, and how it has been filling

The artist marketplace is one of several new or changed storefronts within a few minutes' walk of Shattuck and Addison:

The Top Dog arrangement resembles the one at 2036 Shattuck. Instead of leasing its own storefront, the hot dog shop planned its new outpost inside The BreakRoom, a two-floor cocktail bar and billiards club, Berkeleyside reported in August. Renie and Richard Riemann founded Top Dog in Berkeley in 1966. Over the past decade it has lost several locations. Its Center Street shop closed in 2024 after two decades, and the Lakeshore Avenue location in Oakland closed in October 2025, which left the original Durant Avenue shop as the only one operating. Berkeleyside's September openings roundup listed the new downtown outpost at 2021 Shattuck.

The same roundup reported that Ceré Tea soft-opened at 2106 Shattuck in the former Happy Lemon space, serving matcha, hojicha, blended ube drinks and coffee. Around the corner on Center Street, Berkeleyside reported in September that Crepes A-Go-Go had permanently closed. Its first Berkeley location opened on University Avenue in 1994, and the business returned in 2023 under the original founder's son.

Taken together, the block shows how downtown has been filling space lately. A 60-year-old hot dog shop set up inside a billiards club, and an empty bookstore became an artist marketplace on discounted rent. Both are ways to fill a storefront without a conventional long-term lease.

A downtown holiday route through December

For holiday shopping, these stops fit into one walk:

1. Zero Empty Spaces, 2036 Shattuck Ave. Public hours were announced as noon to 5 p.m. daily, so a weekday lunch break works. Because each artist must be on site at least one day a week, return visits may turn up different makers.
2. The BreakRoom, 2021 Shattuck Ave. Home of the new Top Dog outpost, at the University Avenue end of the same block, a short walk north.
3. Ceré Tea, 2106 Shattuck Ave. It's a short walk south, past Addison.
4. The Berkeley Holiday Gift Fair at Hotel Shattuck Plaza, 2086 Allston Way. The Berkeley Chamber is holding it Thursday, Dec. 3, 2026, from 3 to 7 p.m. It's free to attend and has 25 vendors.

The Dec. 3 fair is a one-evening event. The artist marketplace stays open week to week only until the building at Shattuck and Addison signs its next long-term tenant, and the discounted first six months end in early 2027. Anyone who wants a gift from one of the Shattuck artists has the clearest chance before the new year.

If you're thinking about a home within walking distance of Shattuck and want to know how blocks like this one are changing, Caitlin Crawford would be glad to talk it through. Request a personalized consultation.