Here’s One Way To Get a Mural Painted on Your New High-Rise or Warehouse

Large murals seem to be popping up on apartment buildings, warehouses and parking decks across the country thanks to a growing network of artists who recognize the exposure opportunity.

Jordan Giha, who spent about a dozen years working for commercial property firms, said he's seeing an increasing number of artists seeking to use buildings as their canvas.

At the same time, Giha said more developers want to decorate the large exteriors of their buildings as a way to grab attention and increase foot traffic and maybe even persuade people to rent apartments.

Giha said the growing demand for large artworks and street art has led him to create a marketplace to match developers and owners with bona fide artists.

"I felt like that was an opportunity to connect these two dots," Giha said in an interview. "I thought, 'How can we add creativity and work on this community development... but [while] also building something for the community and also increasing artists’ market value as well and their worth and getting them connected to other opportunities?'"

Giha has worked for several New York City commercial property companies including Platinum Properties, Slate Property Group and Silverstone Property Group. He also is a creative type who makes music and hosts a podcast. "I’m not an artist myself, but I’ve always been a creative," he said. "I’ve never been perfect with coloring within the lines."

During some downtime brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, he decided to meld his creative side with his real estate passion, and he launched Wxllspace, an online platform designed to connect developers who want to add murals to their buildings with the artists who paint them. His company is based in New Rochelle, New York.

Pronounced "wall space," Giha said he spells his company name with a "x" to represent the company's role as a connector between artists and developers. It also is derived from X-ray, he said, because artists like transparency and trust when hired to do a job.

"The artists… don’t really have someone out there searching for walls for them to help them make these marks in all these other cities," and developers often don't know exactly how to find muralists who can do large-scale artwork on their buildings, Giha said. Searching on Google or social networks such as Instagram and Facebook doesn't always work or guarantee that the job gets done, he said.

Here's how it works. Developers can go to the marketplace and lay out what they would like an artist to do. Artists also can go to the site and let owners know what they do and how much they'd likely charge.

If an artist connects with an owner via Wxllspace, the firm gets a 30% fee on top of the commissioned price to cover logistics, on-site equipment, insurance and help navigate local ordinances governing what can be painted where, Giha said. So, a developer who pays an artist $25,000 for a mural would pay an additional $7,500 to Wxllspace.

Pricing can be tricky, Giha said, but the marketplace adds transparency because artists can advertise what they expect and can negotiate with owners. "Some view it as graffiti, and they think it should be free because they’re already painting on certain walls," Giha said. "And some see it as actual fine art."

Wxllspace has several projects in the works. Some 75% of the deals Giha brokers are for multifamily properties, with commercial and warehouses making up the rest.

One recent job that Wxllspace helped an artist secure was done at The Stillwater Stamford, a new apartment building with more than 40 units in Stamford, Connecticut, and developed by Wellbuilt Co. of New York.

Mitch Kidd, managing partner of Wellbuilt with co-founder Scott Lumby, said while connecting with artists proved challenging, finding the right one would have been difficult without Wxllspace.

"Having available artists reach out to us within our budget made it a no-brainer,” Kidd said in a statement. Wellbuilt hired DAAS, an American contemporary artist based in Austin, Texas, who has painted walls on commercial properties across the United States and in Asia and the Middle East.

Giha said he has big plans for Wxllspace. “The mission is to paint every available wall possible,” he said. “For us, the best part of building this company is taking an idea that everyone believes in and working together to turn that into a reality."

Looking ahead, Giha said Wxllspace will work to help profit-driven developers and owners understand how adding murals to their properties could result in more residents, tenants and revenue, he said.

“One of our goals is to quantify how much mural art increases the value of a real asset," he said. "That’s next on the horizon. We already can track foot traffic and social engagement with technology we’re using."