Art At 400 - Where Local Artists Go
Where Local Artists Go to Work - Art at 400
One block from the ArtsXchange, a building of two dozen working studios keeps the Warehouse Arts District's oldest promise: art gets made here first, and shown second.
Some art buildings are designed around the visitor. Art at 400 is designed around the work — and says so up front. The motto at 400 23rd Street South is "where local artists go to work," and the operating hours enforce it: the building opens to the public by appointment and on Second Saturday ArtWalk nights, and otherwise belongs to the roughly two dozen artists who keep studios inside. In a district increasingly organized around what visitors can watch, Art at 400 is the quieter, older idea — a building where the making outranks the showing six days out of seven.
The Community of 24
Art at 400 describes itself as a community of vibrant, collaborative local artists, and the roster spans an unusually wide craft range even by Warehouse District standards: painting, photography, watercolor, woodworking, sculpture, jewelry — and the newer studio disciplines of encaustic and resin work that most gallery districts haven't caught up to. All mediums are welcome by policy, and studio vacancies, when they occur, are announced through the community's social channels — making it one of the district's recurring answers to the working artist's eternal first question: where can I afford to work?
The address places it at the dead center of the district's studio cluster. The ArtsXchange campus, WADA's offices, and Soft Water Gallery all sit a block away; Bayboro Brewing and the Urban Stillhouse hold down the refreshment duties the way 3 Daughters does for Five Deuces. On a Second Saturday, a visitor can walk Art at 400, the ArtsXchange's 28 studios, and Soft Water's exhibitions in a single unhurried hour — the densest concentration of open working studios in Tampa Bay.
One Night a Month, All the Doors Open
ArtWalk is when the building performs. Each second Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m., the studios open, and the community mounts gallery shows that have ranged widely: juried exhibitions like "Dreams of Spring," medium-specific surveys like "Print Mode," themed celebrations including a Pride gallery show with the food and festivity the district's open houses are known for, and featured-artist openings spotlighting locals. The events are free, and — a detail every Warehouse District regular will appreciate — so is the parking, in the gated lot at 5th Avenue and 23rd Street, though it's limited and the early crowd claims it.
The rhythm, in other words, is monastic-then-festive: a working building eleven months... no — twenty-nine days a month, and a party on the thirtieth. For visitors, that makes the appointment option genuinely worth using. An emailed request opens the doors on the quiet days, when the encaustic artist's heat gun is running and the woodshop smells like sawdust, and the conversation is with a maker mid-task rather than mid-crowd. The district's open secret is that this — not the ArtWalk crush — is when studio visits turn into commissions and collector relationships.
The Honest Entry
A candid note, in keeping with this directory's practice: Art at 400 is among the least-documented venues on our list. It keeps a modest public profile — a simple website, an active Instagram, event listings — and the public record doesn't name its founders or fix its opening date (the building was operating as a full 24-artist studio community by late 2021, and likely earlier). That thinness isn't a criticism; it's the profile's point. This is a working building that spends its energy on studio walls rather than press, in the tradition of the district's original warehouses — the ones that were full of artists before anyone thought to write about them. The way to know Art at 400 is the way the district intended: show up on a second Saturday, or better, make the appointment.
Visit: Art at 400 Studios, 400 23rd St. S., St. Petersburg (Warehouse Arts District). Open by appointment and every Second Saturday ArtWalk, 5–9 p.m.; free admission and free (limited) parking in the gated lot at 5th Ave. & 23rd St. Studio availability announced via Instagram @artat400. Information: Art-at-400.com or (352) 586-5371.
Sources: Art at 400 studio materials; St. Pete Catalyst event listings; St. Petersburg Arts Alliance ArtWalk guides; Creative Loafing Tampa Bay; public listings.
