Bakehouse was founded in the mid-1980s by artists who, with support from the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County, acquired a 33,000-square-foot Art Deco-era former bakery situated in Wynwood, north of downtown Miami. Their aim was to protect artists from future real estate booms by acquiring their own site to provide affordable spaces, community, and opportunities for artists. Bakehouse Art Complex addresses a significant gap in South Florida’s cultural ecosystem: affordable studios and fabrication spaces where artists create and engage with each other and the greater community. It is the largest artist-purposed, nonprofit-owned site of its kind and size in the urban core, and it is the working home to approximately 100 Miami-based artists.

With FCI Scoping Grant funds, Bakehouse will engage SOCOTEC, a leading independent consulting group, to provide foundational energy efficiency assessments and recommendations needed to significantly improve the energy efficiency of Bakehouse’s 100-year-old historic facility in preparation for a complete renovation. The results of this project will provide baseline energy use information and will be utilized to develop sustainability and resiliency guidelines for the entire site redevelopment.