(Murals painted on the exterior walls of local business are a signature of the ViBe Creative District.)
By Kate Pittman
In April 2025, the ViBe Creative District will celebrate 10 years of as the creative heartbeat of Virginia Beach, a place where hundreds of local artists are showcased, and dozens of diverse events take place each year. Since 2015, the ViBe Creative District has been adding hundreds of works of public art to Virginia Beach’s bustling resort. Additionally, ViBe has fostered a growing neighborhood of small, locally owned creative businesses that make a notable mark in Virginia Beach’s economy.
Created in partnership with the City of Virginia Beach, the ViBe Creative District intended to spur economic development, attract residents and visitors to the once dormant neighborhood and to create a unique sense of place at the resort. This central beach corridor provides an important cultural connection from the oceanfront beach on the east to the VB Convention Center and Sport Center to the west.
The arts mean business in the ViBe Creative District. More than 65 small businesses have moved into the arts district in the last ten years, generating an increase of $33.9 Million gross sales annually and a net increase of over $916,000 in yearly taxes over 2015 baseline figures from the Commissioner of the Revenue. Outdoor markets and private redevelopment have spurred 203 new businesses licenses located in the district. Additionally, the 15-block area has seen real estate values increase by $56 Million in the last decade, providing a significant return on investment to the City of Virginia Beach.
ViBe is a destination that stands for Virginia Beach—an authentic reflection of our creative community. Last year, AAA’s national Traveler Magazine named Virginia Beach’s ViBe District as one of the “7 US Cities with the Best Street Art and Murals.” The streets, sidewalks, roads, fences and exterior walls are adorned with vibrant works of public art. Residents and visitors alike are welcome to enjoy the open-air museum for free, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. In recognition of this revitalization effort, ViBe has been featured in over 1,000 earned media articles, TV segments, videos interviews, blogs and conferences.
Community partnerships are a key component to ViBe’s success. Partnering with more than 30 nonprofit organizations, the ViBe Creative District’s impact extends beyond the beach to schools, libraries, recreation centers, parks and more. From in-school murals at 18 Title I schools, to hundreds of Season for Nonviolence poetry and poster submissions by students City-wide, ViBe partners closely with VB Schools on multiple projects each year. In 2025, VBSchools students and teachers will help repaint 35 parking space murals for Paint the Parking Lot, a project first implemented in 2020. Cultural entities like Virginia Beach Art Center, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and the Virginia African American Cultural Center are natural collaborative partners. Working with VAACC and the Virginia Tourism Corporation, ViBe has added large outdoor murals to Franklin and Williamsburg.
Internationally, ViBe has partnered with the global creative speakers’ network, CreativeMornings to feature individuals working here in Coastal Virginia. Hosted monthly in The Garage VB, CreativeMornings Virginia Beach highlights diverse, creative entrepreneurs’ stories as a means to formally document the creative capital found here. Locally, the ViBe nonprofit contracts an average of 100 artists a year and has dedicated over $600,000 to artists stipends. These creatives often find additional work with ViBe’s small business community and larger programming partners, from Something in the Water to Busch Gardens. Artists are an integral part of the creative economy in Virginia Beach, so much so that the City of Virginia Beach adopted dedicated funding sources to offer individual artists grants for the first time in 2025. This landmark funding speaks to a growing culture in VB.
People outside of Virginia Beach who are unable to travel to see the murals and arts district can enjoy online photo albums via Facebook, artist feature videos via YouTube for each mural and an online Google Mural Map that has reached more than 710,000+ views globally since it was create in 2017. ViBe’s significant online content drew attention from national and international professional conference planners – the ViBe nonprofit presented nationally at the ASLA Conference in Nashville and virtually via the International Conference on Creative Territories for Sustainable Development in Brazil—both in 2021. Within the Commonwealth of Virginia, ViBe has presented multiple times for the Virginia Commission for the Arts and other professional and alumna associations.
ViBe’s two signature events – ViBe Mural Festival started in 2018 and the VB Street Art Festival started in 2024 – generate the largest support from corporate sponsors. Companies like The Runnymede Corporation, LISC Hampton Roads, Norfolk Southern, TowneBank and Dominion Energy have supported the district in recent years. Likewise, dozens of individual donors contribute annually to support the ViBe Creative District. “The ViBe has been an amazing, transformational organization for this entire neighborhood, and we are so proud to be a part of it,” said Garrett Berger of The Runnymede Corporation, a corporate sponsor of ViBe.
For the remainder of 2025, the ViBe Creative District will celebrate its 10 Year Anniversary with human interest stories from locals sharing how the district has impacted them, ViBe business deals and the inaugural sale of celebration pavers on 18th Street, a fundraiser to create an endowment for sustainable funding into the future. The future continues to look bright as Atlantic Park, neighboring the ViBe Creative District, will also open in 2025. This landmark development, featuring an entertainment venue and world-class surf lagoon, will further grow the economic impact of the arts and culture in Virginia Beach.
Kate Pittman is Executive Director for the ViBe Creative District.
