Bridgespace Commons is a 10,000 square foot building with office and warehouse space in SE Portland. Our goal is to offer and maintain event and meeting space to a variety of groups working for the public good, with an emphasis on mutual aid and community organizing, support and proliferation of the arts, and the expansion and protection of ecological diversity. These objectives weave together in complex and exciting ways, and Bridgespace hopes to be an experimental site for projects to cross paths, share ideas and resources, and build community.

We are working toward a sustainable model of community use, so that groups making use of the space can run and maintain it on a largely self-managed basis. Our early model for achieving this goal is to give participating orgs and individuals the option of donating money or labor to maintain the space - this helps us provide access to those that are low on financial resources while making sure all participants feel real stake in the commons. This is an evolving process as we take on new groups and the community develops its skills and capacities in self-management and placemaking.

We believe that “third spaces” and non-retail sites for fun, collaboration and community building are an important and scarce resource in the city landscape, not only for the security and safety that true community fosters, but for the meaning and sense of mutual power it helps generate for those who participate. This kind of mutual competence and can-do energy in our city is crucial now, and will become more so in coming years.

Some of the current goings-on happening in the space on a weekly basis include:

We are operating on a strictly nonprofit basis, so every bit donated helps to facilitate this important community resource! Watch for updates and contact us if you are a local org and would like to be involved.