5 Sustainable Reuse Principles

by Alan Mallach, Research Director, National Housing Institute

REUSE PRINCIPLE 1: The ultimate goal of all reuse strategies is the reuse of vacant properties in ways that are appropriate and sustainable

• Appropriate for the site and area, taking into account redevelopment plans and long term strategies for the area. It means not only that the land use is appropriate, but that the development or building is designed and sited so that it improves the area or reinforces its positive features, such as architectural or historic character
• Sustainable in that it enhances the long-term social, economic and physical vitality of the community, be it a block, a neighborhood, or the city as a whole.

REUSE PRINCIPLE 2: Sound reuse strategies must be based on an understanding of the market, and must be responsive to the market

• Understand how the market works in the community and region
• Identify market strengths and weaknesses in your neighborhood and city – strengths can be:
  · A major institution, such as a university or medical center
  · A historic district, or an area with attractive and undervalued houses
  · A major park, or water body
  · An ethnic neighborhood, or a cluster of stores and restaurants
  · Proximity to downtown, or to a public transit hub
• Identify target markets and opportunities :
  · People who live elsewhere in the region
  · People who are moving into the region from outside the area
  · People who live in the community – never underestimate the importance of the people who are already in the community to drive future revitalization
• Develop strategies based on target markets and market opportunities
• Design incentives to stimulate – not replace – the market
• The most effective incentives are those that leverage private investment by filling the market gap between the cost of creating the opportunity and its resulting market value.

REUSE PRINCIPLE 3: Sound reuse strategies should be grounded in a vision of the community’s future, and based on well-grounded plans designed to make that future happen.

• Create a vision for the future of the city and each neighborhood
• Take planning seriously
• A plan is more than pretty pictures – design the plan to serve as a guide for implementation and action
• Engage everyone in the planning process, particularly the residents of the area to be redeveloped – not as a pro forma matter, but meaningfully
• Follow the plan – not slavishly, but seriously – treat it as the road map to the future.
• Evaluate the plan regularly – if it’s working, keep going – if not, change it.

REUSE PRINCIPLE 4: Sites should be reused in ways that make the not just the property, but the entire community a better place

• Reuse decisions must be based on sound community design principles
• Respect the past – new development of vacant sites should fit harmoniously with the existing fabric of a community
• Develop and enforce design standards to ensure that new development is compatible and consistent
• Recognize the strengths of urban neighborhoods, and reinforce them through reuse of vacant properties
• Create green neighborhoods – use vacant properties to create open spaces

REUSE PRINCIPLE 5: Within the city and neighborhood framework, specific decisions about reuse of specific sites should be rational ones, based on specific reuse criteria:

• Is the proposed reuse consistent with the long term vision and with the plans that have been adopted to further that vision?
• Does the proposed reuse further specific citywide policy goals, such as creating jobs or increasing the homeownership rate?
• Does the proposed reuse respond to preferences and desires of the residents of the community, such as a need for more affordable – or for move-up – housing, or better neighborhood-scale shopping?
• Does the proposed reuse reflect present or anticipated future market demand?
• Is the proposed reuse responsible, in terms of present and future public sector cost and the availability of resources?

Role of arts in urban revitalization

Below is an excerpt of a talk given at The Peabody Institute Forum. Speakers included Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Dr. William Brody, President of Johns Hopkins University,Adam Gordon, Editor-in-chief of The Next American City.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
We’re here to consider the role of arts in urban revitalization. Probably can’t have a better example of that than the Peabody campus. It’s right in the middle of Baltimore. It’s not quite as famous as Camden Yards, but it is getting there.

Arts and arts organizations seriously are a vital component of a city’s cultural life, particularly for the diverse communities that live there. They are also magnets for people that come from outside: tourists, of course, but also talented and ambitious dreamers.

Art defines our lives. Art pumps us up and makes us complete and gives us something to put a smile on our faces about, as well as gets the brain cells to keep going. When you talk about the pulse of the city, in many ways you really are talking about the artists that live there and the artists that work there. Art is one of the ways in which ethnic communities express themselves. Not everybody has had the kind of education that lets them write well. There are people who just instinctively have the ability to communicate in other ways. I think that great cities recognize this.

Art is about economics as well. I don’t think there’s any question why New York City’s tourism is the way it is. I was with a very well known clothes designer last night at dinner, and he had a friend coming to town who said, “Can you get me a hotel room?” He said both he and his secretary dialed for an hour before they finally found one room. New York City is full, and the reason the hotels are full, the reason the tourists come there, is because they want to see the museums, the performing arts centers–the tiny museums and not just the big ones. Art brings in millions and millions of dollars to any city. It transforms whole neighborhoods.

One of the great challenges we have is to bring artists into communities that are down on their heels and have the artists transform the communities–and that works–but as Mayor O’Malley knows, the great challenge is how do you keep it so the artists are able to live there as these neighborhoods become magnets and more and more people want to move in and drive the starving artists out. There’s no easy answer to that. What is clear is that culture changes neighborhoods, and that all of these things take money to do. There’s no question the arts have to be supported. They have to be supported by private philanthropy as well as public philanthropy. Public philanthropy is great, but it’s private philanthropy that really lets people be totally creative. If we didn’t have private philanthropy we’d be back in the old masters days. We certainly never would have had something as blasphemous as impressionism. Medicine–the same thing is true: you would never try anything new because the public’s money can’t do that.

I think the stakes are very high. If you falter in your community or in your city and you walk away from the arts, it can be generations before you can turn that around. Once it becomes unfashionable to go someplace it stays unfashionable for a long time. It is also a very competitive world. Mayor O’Malley has got to get people to move here; Mayor Bloomberg’s got to get people to move to New York. People have choices today that they never had before.

Live Theater & Shopping

excerpt from Shopping Centers Today

Federal Realty Investment Trust’s Village at Shirlington, in Arlington, Va., gained a dramatic anchor last month — literally. The locally based Signature Theatre production company moved from its space in an industrial garage to a 48,000-square-foot playhouse at the center. The Village is an outdoor, Main Street-style shopping center last renovated in 1989 and made up largely of restaurants and cafés. Tenants include Capital City Brewing Company, Caribou Coffee and Johnny Rockets. Shoppers can have dinner and then see a show, and Sam Sweet, managing director of Signature, says this has worked out very well. “We’ve promoted it as a total entertainment experience,” he said. “Instead of having to find parking and run across the street, people can park in the free garage, walk into Shirlington, perhaps have dinner and see a show.”


The playhouse is in a four-floor complex, with the first floor occupied by the Arlington County Library. The mostly musical repertoire includes Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, which has been a big success, according to Sweet. Walls of glass in the lobby allow patrons to sit at the bar and look out onto the shopping crowd. With the mixture of retail and theater entertainment, Sweet says, traffic has increased, with more visitors walking in for ticket purchases.