The Fresno Bee
January 22, 2008
Lofty Ambitions
Reza Assemi’s newest apartment complex in downtown Fresno is connected physically to his last project, but they are different in many ways. Assemi’s new H Street Lofts are greatly different than...the Vagabond Lofts — even though they are connected and share the same driveway and development team...
The Fresno Bee
June 3, 2007
Downtown Fresno gets new housing
Work has begun on north downtown’s second housing project in a year, buoying the hopes of Fresno leaders who want to breathe life into a long-neglected area....
Get Out! Magazine
October 2006
Reza Assemi hosts his first solo show in Fresno
Sure, he’s the guy behind the scenes of all sorts of artistic goings-on, including downtown’s Pearl Building, its sister Broadway Studios and several large-scale murals...But his art has rarely been seen in town. Until now...
The Fresno Bee
August 1, 2006
Apartments to awaken downtown
City officially celebrate long-awaited opening of housing development in the heart of Fresno’s cultural arts district...
Business Street
August, 2006
An Assemi vision
The former site of the outdated Vagabond Motel at the corner of Broadway and Amador has been reduced to a memory, to make way for a new generation of downtown Fresno residents...
The Sacramento Bee
December 28, 2005
Fresno feels a brain drain as best and brightest move on
When the area’s most educated residents leave, “it takes away from the culture and intellectual life of the valley,” said [George] Raney, 67. It also hamstrings the economy, strains the social fabric and puts a damper on the quality of life here in California’s agricultural heartland...
The LA Times
November 20, 2005
Fresno’s Brain Drain Has Left the Town Smarting
Young people with good educations are leaving the struggling southern San Joaquin Valley in a search for better prospects elsewhere...
The Fresno Bee
October 1, 2005
Developer delivers a pitch for uptown
Reza Assemi is making another big-dollar bet that people will pay good money to live in downtown Fresno. The 30-year-old developer is pushing plans through City Hall to build a $10 million housing/commercial project called Row Houses at Fulton Park...
The Fresno Bee
September 29, 2005
Studios thrive with creativity as artists move in
The convivial atmosphere feels much like the first week back at college, with artists instead of students unpacking and setting up shop in the 25 artist’s spaces of Broadway Studios, at 1416 Broadway St...
The Fresno Bee
June 12, 2005
Fresno artists to get space
Reza Assemi believes art and real estate can be a profitable combination. The 29-year old artist-developer is converting an abandoned 10,000-square-foot Fresno building into work spaces for an emerging downtown artist colony...
Fresno Magazine
May, 2005
New Blood for an Old City
Reza Assemi is an infill developer hard at work within the City of Fresno. With Reza’s vision and labor, downtown Fresno is about to receive a developmental facelift...
Fresno Magazine
April, 2005
Where it’s at: Downtown
here is a new gallery blossoming in downtown Fresno. John Boyle and Reza Assemi, two local artists, have teamed up to promote their passion, art...
Get Out! Magazine
March, 2005
Visions of a new downtown
Assemi envisions a new downtown, one with San Francisco-style buildings, a combination of housing, art studios, galleries and commercial space. He hopes the lofts — and this neighborhood — will become the heart of that new downtown...
Fresno Magazine
November, 2004
Mural walk takes its first steps”
year ago it was just a dream. Reza Assemi, owner of the Pearl Building downtown, had a vision. “I wanted to start a ‘mural walk’ all the way down to the Fulton Mall,” Assemi said...
The Fresno Bee
October 21, 2004
Pair create mural to highlight Fresno’s existing art and culture
In the world Josh Wigger and Mehran Heard created on an alley wall off of Fulton Street, the winds blow a creative life force through barren wastelands and into a bright cityscape...
The Fresno Bee
December 4, 2003
Reframing Downtown
Reza Assemi knows that talking positively about downtown Fresno comes with a price. You are stamped as a naive dreamer or worse by skeptics who don’t believe the area will ever have a big-city vitality and night life...
The Fresno Bee
December 4, 2001
Home is Where the Art is
After all the other downtown workers have gone home, Reza Assemi is still working on his paintings in his Fulton Street studio. He wakes up to the smell of his oil paints because his studio is also his home...
The Business Journal
November 23, 2001
Pearl Studio sets a gem in downtown Fresno
After six months of working with the city of Fresno to receive a permit allowing tenants to live in a commercial zone property, Reza Assemi and his partners will finally open Pearl Studio downtown...
The Fresno Bee
October 16, 2001
Building Image
Brian Shabaglian works Monday on a Mural of Marilyn Monroe on the former Red Cross building in downtown Fresno....