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How to Support Adaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings

First, five preservation tips regarding reuse projects.

Research building reuse successes and missed opportunities in your community so that you may be a stronger advocate for preserving the character of your community’s vacant and threatened historic buildings.

1. Do your homework.

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Preservation professionals can provide additional guidance and local resources for promoting building reuse in your community. The local planning department can address how zoning and building regulations may enable or hinder reuse.

2. Contact your state historic preservation office and local planning department.

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Tell your local officials that building reuse is an important contributor to economic and social well-being of your community. Encourage them to remove regulatory barriers to reuse and modernize zoning and building regulations. Consider sharing your views by writing to your city council members or by speaking at one of their meetings.

3. Let your voice be heard.

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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. (See case studies in the next section.) Do your part by patronizing these preservation-friendly organizations.

4. Support businesses and organizations that adaptively reuse historic buildings.

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Posting photos and commentary on favorite reuse projects in your community is a great way to spread the word about the value and innovation of adaptive reuse. (Learn more in our social media toolkit series.)

5. Share on social media.

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Next, five examples of successful reuse projects to get you started.

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. The National Trust’s Preservation Green Lab is partnering with the Urban Land Institute to help other cities to learn from reuse best practices in Los Angeles. Learn more.

1. Downtown Los Angeles

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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. Serendipitously, Climb So iLL, a climbing gym, needed a large open space for their facility, and with the support of their partners, became the first occupants of the soaring plant space in 26 years. Learn more.

2. Power Plant (St. Louis, Mo.)

Photo courtesy Tim Kemple

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. Learn more.

3. Pabst Brewhouse (Milwaukee, Wis.)

Photo courtesy Brewhouse Inn & Suites

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

4. The Navy Yard (Philadelphia, Pa.)

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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 sells flour and rolled oats at the Pickup Café (housed in the building) and through distribution companies throughout New England. Learn more.

5. Skowhegan Jail (Skowhegan, Maine)

Photo courtesy Amber Lambke

Ten on Tuesday features ten preservation tips each week. For more tips, visit blog.PreservationNation.org.