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State

Downtown Business Improvement Zone (2/29)

Federal

FEMA SAFER (2/24)

Avian Health and Disease Surveillance and Monitoring Support (2/24)

Foundation

Innovations in Reading (2/21)

Historic Preservation –

One Way to Build the Foundation for Downtown Redevelopment

Triad Associates

Maintaining a healthy downtown and central business district are important goals for any community.  Meeting these goals involves not only investments in new stores and commercial opportunities, but in the aesthetic and often historic characteristics of the community itself.  This effort includes the rehabilitation and preservation of a main street, as well as facilitating economic growth throughout all aspects of the economy.  This cannot be done by improving the façades of a downtown or preserving historic buildings alone, but must be coupled with job creation, business development and business expansion as well.  Ultimately, the redevelopment of a main street within a healthy regional economy can be an important catalyst for the revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood through increased homeownership rates and property values. 

Historic preservation often provides a context and foundation for the revitalization of a downtown or a main street that has suffered a business exodus as a result of the big box boom of the 80’s and 90’s.  Maintaining a classic main street façade with historic buildings that include both public and private uses is a vital way to maintain pedestrian activity in a downtown. For example, maintaining a historic city hall building provides a sense of pride for a community.  Keeping a County Court House building along a main street is another way to keep a main street vibrant with pedestrian activity.  These uses help to create a sense of place through quality architecture that the community can use as an anchor for their downtown and main street improvement strategy.  Not only does it promote economic development, but it also helps our communities maintain their heritage.  However, this type of main street and urban redevelopment does not come without its challenges. With the anticipated closure of nearly 50 post offices in New Jersey, many located in already underserved communities for goods and services, removing these offices may be another thorn in the side of communities who have relied on the post office as a source of activity in their downtowns.  Coming up with creative reuses of the post office space will be an exercise that communities should already start considering.

Another challenge of historic preservation is the sheer cost of redevelopment.  The redevelopment of a historic building maintains higher standards than a typical redevelopment.  The rehabilitation of a building not under the auspice of historic preservation may cost a third less than historic standards.  To abate these financial challenges there is a federally administered “Historic Preservation Tax Incentive Program”.  This program, which is run through the National Park Service, is a 20% tax credit program that began in 1976 through a partnership with the IRS and the State Historic Preservation Offices.  The program rewards private investments in rehabilitating income producing properties such as offices, retail stores or rental housing.  Unfortunately this program does not apply to private homeowners who rehabilitate their historic homes.  In order to be eligible for the tax credit program there are four factors that must be met: the building must be listed in the National Register for Historic Places, or have a significant contribution to a “registered historic district”; the building must be used for an income producing purpose for at least five years; the project must meet the “substantial rehabilitation” test, or the cost of rehab must exceed the pre-rehabilitation cost of the building; and the work must follow the standards of rehabilitation set by the Secretary of the Interiors Standards for rehabilitation.  These include the 10 principles that ensure the historic preservation of a project.  For more detailed information about this useful program that can be used by potential developers or businesses visit, www.nps.gov.

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