TheBodega

Downtown Phoenix has undergone a remarkable resurgence over the past decade. But amid the new towers and infill development, hundreds of modest commercial buildings from the 1940s to 60s remain, overlooked, underutilised, and increasingly under threat.

The Bodega was one such building. A former storage facility on a transitional block, it had sat vacant for nearly a decade when Contreras first encountered it.

The question was not whether to preserve it, that decision was straightforward. The question was what it should become.

The program that emerged was deliberately hybrid: part studio, part workshop, part gathering space. A flexible live-work model designed to serve Phoenix's growing creative community.

The intervention was surgical, existing concrete block walls retained and expressed, new steel insertions clearly legible as contemporary additions. Skylights cut through the original roof brought natural light deep into the plan for the first time in the building's history.

The Bodega is now fully occupied, with a mix of designers, makers, and small creative businesses calling it home.