Ten Tips for

SUPPORTING ADAPTIVE REUSE OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS

First, five tips to get your adaptive reuse efforts off the ground.

1. Do Your Homework.Research building reuse successes and missed opportunities in your community. This will help you be a stronger advocate for preserving other historic buildings in the area.

2. Contact the state historic preservation office and local planning departments.Preservation professionals can provide additional guidance and local resources for promoting building reuse in your community. The local planning department can explain how zoning and building regulations may enable or hinder reuse.

3. Let your voice be heard.Explain to your local officials that building reuse is an important contributor to the economic and social well-being of your community. Encourage them to remove regulatory barriers to reuse and modernize zoning and building regulations.

4. Support businesses and organizations that adaptively reuse historic buildings.From big-box retailers to locally owned businesses and nonprofit institutions, diverse groups and individuals are adaptively reusing historic buildings in creative ways across the country.

5. Share on social media.Posting photos and commentary about favorite reuse projects in your community is a great way to spread the word about the value of adaptive reuse.

Next, five examples of successful adaptive reuse projects to inspire

your work.

1. Downtown Los Angeles.Throughout the city, innovative reuse projects are showing how diverse older buildings can be repurposed to meet the marketplace’s changing demands. The city’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance has helped encourage the reuse of historic buildings downtown, with some 14,000 residential units created in converted buildings between 1999 and 2013. Click here to learn more.

2. Power Plant: St. Louis.In 2010, Gilded Age developers and Environmental Operations, Inc. began restoring a former hospital power plant and looking for a tenant that could occupy the 10,000 square feet of space. With the support of partners, a local climbing gym became the first occupants of the soaring space in 26 years. Click here for more info.

3. Pabst Brewhouse: Milwaukee.Brewhouse Inn & Suites, a 90-room boutique hotel, opened in April 2013 in the 1892 building that was the original home of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. The hotel used lumber salvaged from the building to make the headboards for its beds as well as the tables for its bar and extended-stay rooms. Click here for more.

4. The Navy Yard: Philadelphia.Retailer Urban Outfitters moved its operations to Philadelphia’s historic Navy Yard with the purchase and rehabilitation of five abandoned industrial buildings. The project has sparked the rebirth and economic redevelopment of south Philadelphia. Learn more.

5. Skowhegan Jail: Skowhegan, Maine.Amber Lambke thought that the jail would make a great grist mill when she toured the building in 2007. Today, Maine Grains in the Somerset Grist Mill produces flour and rolled oats in the building. Click here to learn more.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation works to save America’s historic places. Preservation Tips & Tools helps others do the same in their own communities.

For more information, visit blog.preservationnation.org.https://savingplaces.org/tips-and-tools  

Photos courtesy: Flickr user EPA Smart Growth, Flickr user bluebike, Flickr user CEBimagery.com, Flickr user JoelInSouthernCA, Flickr user reallyboring, Brewhouse Inn & Suites, Flickr user Nell Kremer, Flickr user Jim Bowen, Flickr user Kevin Burkett, Flickr user jimmywayne.