SHORT DESCRIPTION

Initial cue

As in many other small towns, there are plenty of vacant shop premises in Neunkirchen; these are unused because of commercial development on the edge of town, and there is no sign of new tenants. The remaining shopkeepers notice they attract fewer customers, and would like the situation to improve – as would residents in general.

Goals

So the Ideenwerkstatt association launched the Neunkirchen Space Agency, which receives grants of public money as a project within the Lower Austria program of community renewal. The aim is to find new uses for the vacant shop premises, with local people participating in the process. Empty buildings should become space for opportunities; ways of using them temporarily are searched for, supported and implemented, with the owners involved as partners in the process.

Sequence of events

The first thing was to survey and analyse the current state of the premises in question; at this stage the owners were asked whether they would agree to their shops being used for non-commercial temporary or preliminary uses on special terms (at reduced rents). Once the legal framework for temporary uses was in place, the general public were invited to the opening of the Space Agency in a vacant shop. Over a period of several months contact to local people was built up, and “Dinners in vacant premises” were held, at which those present could get talking to one another and to partners from the Space Agency. Ideas were spotlighted, followed up and supported. As a basic rule local people's support and backing for the initiative was regarded as essential throughout.

Within a year a regular toddlers' group, a series of lectures, two pop-up shops, needlework courses and a childminding facility on shopping Saturdays were installed in vacant premises; local people recognized and used the potential of what had been empty shops. Further uses will follow.