10/07/2026
We've found some of the best conference moments happen after the microphones turn off and people actually sit down together.
Tonight in Pensacola, we had the opportunity to bring together a table of fellow speakers between civic leaders, placemakers, artists, architects, downtown advocates, storytellers, and community builders during the CivicCon Civic Leader Summit.
Different cities. Different disciplines. Different perspectives.
But many of the same questions:
How do we make our communities more vibrant?
How do we strengthen downtowns?
How do we better support artists and entrepreneurs?
How do we turn vacant and underutilized spaces into assets instead of liabilities?
And of course, how do we work with ai?
These are exactly the conversations we believe matter at Zero Empty Spaces.
We were grateful to share the table with Mayor Allan Branch of Panama City, Valerie Lemmie of Kettering Foundation, artist and designer Daniela de Castro, kristenphoto, Max Musicant of The Musicant Group, J. Scott Sallis of Dalrymple | Sallis Architecture, Misty Heath of S**o Main Street District, and Nick Georgoudiou.
We've found there’s real power in bringing people from different sectors around the same table to exchange ideas, challenge assumptions, share what’s working, and uncover unexpected opportunities to collaborate.
At Zero Empty Spaces, we spend a lot of time thinking about what happens when underutilized places are reimagined. The same principle applies to people: bring the right mix together and entirely new possibilities can emerge.
We’re looking forward to more conversations, more ideas, and more collaboration throughout the rest of the Civic Leader Summit.
And if your community is wrestling with a vacant or underutilized space, we’re always happy to compare notes and explore what it could become.
