The Economic Benefits of Historic Preservation
October 22, 2024 | Chris Johnston and Kari Wolff
Historic preservation brings significant economic benefits to the communities and local economies of historic commercial districts. The positive impact of preserving historic buildings, downtowns, and districts include attracting heritage tourism, fostering community revitalization, creating business incubation locations, and increasing sustainability and value.
Heritage Tourism
Historic preservation attracts heritage tourism by protecting the historic sites, architectural details, and stories that draw in heritage tourists. According to Missouri’s Department of Tourism’s Annual Report (FY 2023), two of the top 10 activities for overnight visitors included landmarks/historic sites and museums (Data from visitmo.com). Main Streets offer a plethora of ways for visitors to engage with their history and historic sites through walking tours and plaques often featuring stories of the buildings and sites that people visit. Every visitor provides a substantial economic boost for the historic commercial district and surrounding community. Spending from heritage tourist in FY 2023 averaged to $336.24 per person per overnight trip, which is dispersed between local hotels, restaurants, shops, and other small businesses (Statistics from visitmo.com).
Community Revitalization
Engaging in community revitalization through historic preservation leads to a thriving, vibrant historic commercial district that supports economic growth, spurs more investment, and enhances quality of life. One way Main Street stakeholders pursue community revitalization is through restoring buildings, which conveys a sense of pride in the area and can have a positive ripple effect on investment by other property owners (Historicengland.org.uk). By revitalizing historic assets, beautiful places are created. These preservation efforts directly affects the quality of life for current residents and boosts the local economy through more creating places for businesses to occupy (Savingplaces.org). The boost to the quality of life comes from shopping at existing and newly recruited businesses and living in developed neighborhoods.
Attracting Talent and Job Creation
Historic building rehabilitations often require skilled labor-intensive craftsmanship when it comes to the masonry, windows, and other architectural details. This necessitates working with companies in your area who have expertise in working with historic materials. Because of this, the money spent on these projects stays within the local economy, supporting talented workers and investors who are drawn to areas with a strong sense of place and history. The increased demand for these services creates more skilled labor jobs.
Business Incubation
The Economic Vitality point within the Main Street Approach™ works perfectly with the innate historic preservation ethic of the Main Street Approach™ as it transforms vacant, underutilized buildings into vibrant economic hubs. Historic buildings, especially the larger ones, provide the necessary space needed to offer affordable spaces to start-ups and small businesses including incubator space housing many small businesses within its walls. Dutchtown and Joplin are two Main Streets that have successful food incubator spaces that support businesses growing into brick and mortar locations. These unique spaces with their varied businesses contribute to economic diversity and resilience within historic districts.
Sustainability and Increased Value
Historic Preservation prioritizes the reuse of exiting historic assets, such as buildings, as the means to preserve the community’s history, reduce environmental impact, and reduce costs on property owners. This is accomplished through adaptive reuse and preserving existing structures which reduces the need for new materials and minimizes waste (Learn more about this idea with “The Reuse Imperative’ from savingplaces.org). Using the existing high-quality materials and craftsmanship is a sustainable practice that can save money in the long run (Learn more about this with “The Greenest Building from savingplaces.org). Donovan Rypkema published an interesting stat stating, “saving one downtown building = recycling 1,344,000 aluminum cans”. Well-maintained buildings lead to increased tax revenues that are reinvested in the community creating a more desirable community to live, work, shop, and play in.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Main Street America, and National Preservation Institute are among many organizations in the historic preservation realm that researches and highlights the economic impact of historic preservation and the economic benefits it brings including boosting tourism, revitalizing communities, attracting talent and businesses, and promoting sustainability and increased property values. There are many programs available to assist property owners with their preservation efforts including grants at the federal or local levels. Federal and state rehabilitation tax credits may be able to assist as well as low-interest loans or easement programs. By recognizing the economic benefits of historic preservation, communities can continue to protect their heritage while building strong and sustainable communities.
