In the year since Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy, the chain’s stores have become a hot commodity of sorts—finding new lives as pickleball courts, fitness centers, and, of course, other retailers. This week, a group announced that a former Bed Bath & Beyond store in downtown Seattle will be reenvisioned as a music and visual arts center next year.

The venue, Cannonball Arts, is expected to open in spring 2025 and is the vision of New Rising Sun, the organizers behind Seattle’s annual Bumbershoot Arts & Music Festival, in partnership with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Like Bumbershoot, Cannonball will take a broadly interpretative view of the arts, showcasing everything from pole dancing to wrestling to cooking to fashion to roller skating to sculpture and traditional art, according to Greg Lundgren, coproducer and creative director of New Rising Sun.

“So many people are doing amazing creative work in the Pacific Northwest and we don’t think it’s really fair or healthy to just celebrate a portion of that community,” Lundgren tells Fast Company. He expects that the 66,000-square-foot space will change, adapt, and transform with time, with parts that look like traditional galleries and others that embrace the spectacle of a carnival or state fair.

Lundgren’s ambitions don’t end there. He hopes that Cannonball Arts will welcome in a new era for Seattle’s downtown district and forge a lasting relationship with local artists and producers who can remain integral to a transformed, vibrant neighborhood. 

A slow post-pandemic recovery

Seattle’s downtown has languished in the four-plus years since it became the first urban center in the United States to grapple with COVID-19 lockdowns. The city landed near the bottom in the latest Downtown Vitality Index, compiled by The Business Journals, which ranks 40-plus central business districts based on how well-positioned they are for success in the hybrid work era. 

Like other West Coast cities, Seattle’s post-pandemic recovery has been marred by broad-reaching layoffs in the tech industry, a higher-than-average cost of living, and a spike in drug overdoses. There’s been an exodus from the city among creatives, according to Lundgren, while office workers also haven’t returned in full force. In March, Seattle’s downtown averaged about 87,000 daily workers, just over half the daily foot traffic seen the same month five years ago, according to the Downtown Seattle Association.

Who better than artists to help revitalize Seattle’s downtown? Even though the center itself is an experiment, Lundgren is confident that artists will transform the area, just as they’ve done in other cities. The location is within a 10-minute walk of popular tourist attractions, like Pike Place Market or the Seattle Art Museum or Westlake Center or Amazon’s futuristic campus, along with some of the city’s seedier spots, including a McDonald’s that’s earned the nickname “McStabby’s” by some locals.

Still, Lundgren says he wouldn’t trade the location for any other and is excited to be part of the solution in changing some people’s perceptions of the city. 

“We are not blind to some of the problems that downtown Seattle has faced and continues to face,” Lundgren says. But the choice of the former Bed Bath & Beyond store was very intentional. “This is the right building in the right location at the right time.”