Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil is famously quoted as saying, "All politics is local." A few years ago the National Trust did an extensive analysis of attitudes toward historic preservation. What did they discover? That all (or nearly all) preservation is local as well. Thus a citizen will become an advocate when her favorite local landmark is endangered, but may be largely indifferent to the same situation 500 miles away.

It was as a direct outgrowth of this discovery that the Trust established their State and Local Partnership program -- realizing that a national organization in Washington, even with seven regional offices -- simply was not the one to make the preservation case in every local battle. That would take state and local preservation advocacy and education organizations. The Trust's Preservation Leadership Training program about which I wrote on July 3, is part of that effort -- increasing the capacity of state and local preservation activists.

Yesterday (July 9) I wrote about a journalist, Jon Zemke and an excellent story he wrote for the Ann Arbor, Michigan focused online publication Concentrate.

Well Jon writes for a couple of sister publications as well, including Metromode which has a slightly larger geographical pervue. So today he has a similar story entitled How Historic Preservation Can Help SE Michigan.

If you read them both you'll see that there is perhaps a 60% overlap in the content. But the magic of what Jon has done is localizing abstract concepts and numerical factoids and tying them into real people doing real things...next door.

That advances this "all politics is local" effectiveness.

As preservationists we need to meet local journalists (today especially online ones) and give them our basic arguments and the factoids we might have. The good ones like Jon, will take it from there, find the local connection, and effectively help make our case.

Yeah, this is a bit self-serving, and I apologize in advance for that. But a couple of weeks ago I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I wrote about it in this blog on June 13th.

Well, on that trip I met a journalist by the name of Jon Zemke and subsequently traded emails with him. Jon writes for and is news editor of the online magazine Concentrate which covers the Ann Arbor area.

So Jon, who himself lives in a historic property, wrote a great story that you might want to check out entitled The Economic Upside of Preservation. He generously quotes me in the article, hence the self-serving part. But he did something else that good journalists do -- he made the local connection. Yeah, he cited some of the factoids that I often talk about in relation to the economic impact of historic preservation. But more importantly he put those abstract numbers into a local context using local historic preservation projects and local property owners. His photography colleague Dave Lewinski added great photos, including the one I've stolen and inserted above.

Furthermore, he got it right -- at least in relation to what I had to say. And that is often not the case with local journalists -- even when what they write is largely sympathetic.

Historic preservation has a great story to tell -- about its positive economic impact and its being at the heart of real sustainable development. But someone has to tell that story -- and tell it well. And Jon Zemke has done exactly that.

Labels: Ann Arbor, historic preservation, sustainability

Biddeford, Maine. Never heard of it? Well, I guess that's not surprising, it's a town of only 22,000, 15 miles south of Portland, Maine. But it is one of the oldest towns in New England, with the first sawmill having been built there over 350 years ago.

Biddeford was a textile town, at its peak having over 12,000 workers in the textile mills there. But during the 20th Century most of the textile plants relocated to the Carolinas and Georgia. (As an aside, I often like to point out that self-serving politicians like John Edwards whine about the loss of textile jobs to the Caribbean, Africa and East Asia as if those jobs were some god-given right for North Carolinians. But they disingenuously ignore, in fact, that those jobs were stolen by North and South Carolina from New England less than a century ago.)

Anyway today there are only around 200 textile jobs still in Biddeford. But what still exist are 2.5 million square feet of well built mill buildings, a century or more old. Buildings, yes, but a public sector and some progressive, enlightened developers seeing the 19th century built heritage of Biddeford accommodating the residential, commercial and industrial needs of the 21st century.
There are simultaneous activities taking place among several developers, including a $100,000,000 adaptive reuse, mixed use project in mill buildings right across the river in the adjacent town of Saco. But two projects at different stages of development will serve as examples.

The Riverdam Mill project is being advanced by SpencerMonksDevelopment of Portland. SpencerMonks has acquired a 2 year option on the 160,000 square foot property for redevelopment into a variety of uses. They've done a great job of identifying the multiple sources of financing that will be required to make this deal fly. It will be neither quick nor easy, but they seem to recognize that and they have a realistic sense of the particular challenges and obsticles to this type of development.

But here's what most impressed me about their information packet. Instead of citing such imaginary competitive advantages as "low taxes" or "cheap labor" or "the latest high tech gizmos available", they have a different set of arguments why the redevelopment of Riverdam makes sense: job creation, affordable housing, smart growth, historic preservation, downtown revitalization, green development, brownfield redevelopment. In short, while they are certainly in the deal to make money (as well they should be) they have positioned their project to have significant benefits beyond their own pocketbooks. And they have recognized that Riverdam isn't a stand-alone project but one more incremental component of a broader effort.


The second project is a little more downstream, so to speak. The North Dam Mill development is currently wrapping up their first phase and moving on to Phase II. The North Dam Mill, is actually a complex of three former textile mill buildings totaling nearly 400,000 square feet. Already completed in Phase I are 60,000 square feet of retail, commercial, studio and industrial space. The first phase started in late 2005 and currently houses some 40 small businesses including several retail shops, a coffeehouse, studios for photographers and artists, a print shop, a dance studio and others.

This project has solidly positioned itself as the venue of choice for the creative economy activities of the 21st Century. They are also in ongoing negotiations with fast growing University of New England, both for student and faculty housing but also for direct University activities. There are several great models for college facilities being located in former mill and industrial buildings, by the way. Two of my favorites are the University of New Hampshire - Manchester and the University of Washington - Tacoma. In both cases university leadership was sufficiently enlightened to understand that those underutilized buildings and college activities were a natural fit. And students always add vibrancy and excitement to an area.

The development team at the North Dam Mill has wisely left unspecified exactly when Phase III of their project will begin. That allows the market to adjust, for lessons to be learned from earlier phases, and for risk mitigation as the project moves forward. The three big mistakes that preservationists often make with these kind of buildings is "We have to do it all; we have to do it now; we have to do it on this preconceived use." Doing it in phases is the prudent way to approach these projects and that's what the North Dam Mill people are doing.



So these are both enlightened private sector development groups. But as I'm sure both would tell you, they would not have a chance to be successful were it not for strong support from and assistance of the City. Currently underway is a Mill District Master Plan and consideration for both a tax increment financing district (TIF) and a National Register Historic District.

This is a great example of Smart Growth. The existing vacant space in mill buildings in Biddeford can probably accommodate all of the economic and residential growth for the next two decades...all without consuming a single acre of additional land at the periphery. And reusing buildings - the ultimate in recycling - is far more environmentally responsible than just adding some solar panels to a new crappy building in Sprawlsville.

In the sometimes arcane world of international, academic historic preservation conferences, there are often sessions on the "spirit of place" and not infrequently papers delivered arguing that adaptive reuse like is taking place in Biddeford represents the destruction of the "spirit of place". What absolute nonsense! I heard the Mayor of Biddeford, Joanne Twomey, talk about what is happening in her community. She said that her grandmother, a French-Canadian, migrated to work in the mills in Biddeford, and so she certainly was aware of the character and quality of the "spirit of place" of those mills in the textile days. But Mayor Twomey's pride and excitement over what today is happening absolutely reflects a new "sense of place" perfectly appropriate for that town and those buildings.

So go to Biddeford for a visit or to invest or maybe as a great place to relocate (at VERY affordable rents) your "creative economy" business. And I'm sure that Rachael Weyand, executive director of Heart of Biddeford, the local Main Street program, will be happy to help you. Oh, your firm is in Boston you say? No problem. A new Amtrak station is being completed in the midst of the mill building redevelopment...so walk to the train and ride the 90 miles to Beantown.

The textile industry has largely abandoned Biddeford and towns like it for cheaper labor elsewhere. But the built legacy of those industries still stands and is calling for adaptive reuse in the 21st century. Smart cities and investors are answering that call.

Labels: economic development, historic preservation, small towns, Smart Growth, Sustainable Develoment

A couple of days ago (July 1) I wrote about the great risk takers in Story City, Iowa, who leaped into the breach and acquired the Charlson Building in their downtown.

As part of that post I mentioned a wonderful business located in the Charlson Building, RVP1875, a custom reproduction furniture company and its chief craftsman, Robbie Pedersen. Making sure the historic building wasn't lost to demolition by neglect or by bulldozer was the primary motivation for the Greater Chamber Connection (GCC) getting directly involved. However the timing and sense of urgency was driven by the desire to keep Robbie in Story City.

Well, I no sooner got the story posted then I get an email from Carolyn Honeycutt, the executive director of the GCC. "Unfortunately", she wrote, "in the process of this whole thing we lost RVP."

Why? Well, while the city was diddling around saying, "We need more information. We need a study. The engineering report is a couple of years old, we need an update" Robbie Pedersen decided he needed to look for options. He went to his hometown of Jefferson, Iowa, a place that obviously does understand economic development. The City of Jefferson provided a historic building for an affordable price (about $6/square foot -- and that is PURCHASE price, not annual rent) provided some low interest financing, and committed to $10,000 of renovations. So Robbie took them up on it.

And who could blame him? Well, his strong supporters in Story City can a bit. They put up their own money when the City wouldn't help so that the building could be acquired so that Robbie could stay. So it's not surprising that there are lots of folks in Story City who are more than a little disappointed.

Having said that, had the city government of Story City acted promptly (as did the City of Jefferson) there's a good chance Robbie would have stayed.

But even without RPV1785, the decision by GCC was the right one. They'll ultimately find another good tenant to take the space.

But the lesson shouldn't be lost. Cities need to step up to the table when there's a good idea even when there's a bit of risk involved. The risk of not acting is often much greater.

In the spirit of full disclosure I'll begin by acknowledging that the National Trust is a great client of mine, and has been for 25 years. However, I am not now nor have I ever been an employee of the Trust and so I actually don't have to say nice things about them to keep my job.

Over the years I've done work for most of the departments of the National Trust - Main Street of course, but also Properties, Public Policy, Finance, the annual conference, most of the publications, and even the administration side.

But among the favorite things I do for the Trust each year is a half day presentation at PLT - the Preservation Leadership Training program. PLT is a VERY intensive 7 day, 15 hour a day workshop for preservation professionals. Of the 30 or 35 people who attend each year, perhaps half of them are staff for non-profit preservation groups (statewide organizations, local organizations, Main Street programs), maybe a third work for state or local governments (SHPO offices, local preservation commissions) and the balance from the private sector or board members of organizations.

PLT is a combination of lectures and an on-the-ground hands-on case study of a local preservation challenge. Every year the location is in a different part of the country, so the nature of the case study varies widely. The lectures, which run from 9 to 5, are in such areas as Community Leadership, Politics of Preservation, Human Resources, Strategic Planning, Fund Raising, Legal Tools, Design, and (in my little niche) the Economics of Preservation. In short, the very areas of expertise that a preservation professional needs if he/she is going to be effective.

Now I've been doing PLT for the Trust for, I don't know, I guess close to 20 years. And here's why I think it is one of the best things the Trust does every year. The people who attend PLT work for the types of entities who are a big share of my clients - non-profit preservation groups, downtown organizations, and state and local governments. In any given year 4 or 5 of the attendees will have already been clients of mine, and a dozen or so more will be clients in the following couple of years.

But what PLT does is moves them to a whole other level in both competence and confidence. They come into PLT with different levels of experience and expertise, but for virtually every one of them, they take a quantum leap in their capacity.

As I said, the days are filled with the lectures...but that's only half the work. The early mornings and evenings (often well into the night) are consumed with group work on the local case study project.

PLT participants are broken up into five or six teams with a half dozen participants on each team. They are given background on the case study project, conduct dozens of interviews with local stakeholders and, team by team, come up with a recommended response to the preservation issue.

This year's PLT was in Portland, Maine, a great town of 64,000 that I'll write about in a subsequent blog. And the case study was the Baxter Building, originally the public library and for the past 10 years or so been used as studio and classroom space for the Maine College of Art. The College currently owns but will be vacating the property. The case study, then, was to answer the question, "What now for the Baxter Building?" For additional insight on this year's PLT you might want to read Priya Chhaya's two blogs from Portland.

At the end of the week the PLT participants make a public presentation of their findings and recommendations. In several instances that I've seen over the years, it was the PLT insights that gave the local community both the direction and the confidence to appropriately address the preservation challenge.

So if you are a preservation professional (or want to be) get ahold of Alison Hinchman (Alison_Hinchman@nthp.org) at the Center for Leadership Training at the National Trust. Next year there will be two PLT opportunities, the first in Alabama the week of January 11th and the second in Deadwood, South Dakota the week of June 21st.

Spend the time (and the modest amount of money). You'll take a giant step in your preservation career.

Towns and cities that are willing to take a risk on themselves - those are my favorite places to work. And Story City, Iowa is just such a place. I was there early last year spending a day talking with city officials, business people, preservationists and others all organized by the GCC -- the Greater Chamber Connection. In Story City both the Chamber of Commerce and the local Main Street program fall within this GCC partnership and a very bright woman, Carolyn Huneycutt is the Director.


Now the population of Story City is only around 3200, but their downtown has the "100% corner" like larger communities. And on their 100% corner sits the Charlson Building, one of the older structures in town, probably around 1880. A great building, on the most important corner in town, occupied by three businesses (I'll come back to that below) but in deteriorating condition. Doing something with the building had been a priority of the GCC for a number of years. But they finally decided, "if not us, who" and took the leap to acquire the building themselves.

Why would they do that? Because the leadership of GCC, the Ackley State Bank, and a number of individuals understood that investing in the Charlson Building is not just dumping money in an old structure. It is certainly historic preservation, but it is also economic development, community development, small business incubation, business retention, downtown housing, good small town urbanism, and common sense.

Individuals came up with the down payment money and signed personal guarantees on the mortgage. The GCC had asked the town to guarantee the loan, but the City Council said, "we need more information, we need this studied some more, we have to think about this." And so on a 2 to 2 vote with one abstention the town government chose not to participate. But the GCC understood this 19th century building should continue to serve an important function in the 21st century and went ahead without the city's help.

I know projects like the Charlson Building. It will be time consuming, it will have unanticipated setbacks, it will have cost overruns, it will generate frustration with regularity, AND it will be a project generations of Story City residents will be grateful that someone had the courage to undertake.

The great Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith once wrote, "The preservation movement has one great curiosity. There is never retrospective controversy or regret. Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact." I know that's going to be the case in Story City as well.

Now the tenants in the building -- there are some apartments upstairs, but there are three commercial tenants: Curves (a health spa sort of place); the local office of Edward D. Jones & Company, probably the only national investment firm that understands there is also opportunity in small towns in America; and RVP1875.

RVP1875 is absolutely the coolest business I saw all last year anywhere. What do they do? They make furniture. But that's a vast understatement. They reproduce furniture that was originally made in a narrow time frame -- from about 1865 to 1880 if I remember correctly. But they make it exactly like it was made at the time -- same materials, same wood, same tools, same craftsmanship.

Now I'm someone who can barely distinguish a nail from a hammer. But as a result I have a huge admiration and appreciation for those skilled in this fashion. RVP1875 is actually Robby Pedersen a master cabinet maker. Robby learned his skills while working as the resident cabinet maker at Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa. After 10 years there he decided to make his skill his business and started RPV1875 in the Charlson Building in Story City.

The business and the building are a perfect match - each adding authenticity and credibility to the other. Now you can't stop in Robby's shop and just buy something - each piece is made to order. But you can see plenty of examples of his incredible craft, and he's more than happy to show you his tools, explain how they work, and take your order for that cabinet or table or bedstead.

In part the reason the GCC took the risk on the Charlson Building was to keep RPV1875 in town. That's what economic development is about.

The GCC and Robby Pedersen deserve each other. And a big cheer from here for what they are doing.