As we are reminded by Pam Miner’s PM article, “Sustainable Redevelopment in Downtown Davenport,” there are few more effective or efficient ways to invest in your community than renovating existing local government structures, especially antiquated ones. In carrying out such a project, a government can increase its overall sustainability while increasing its available work space or available public space.

The following is a list of Knowledge Network resources that highlight constructive, sustainable practices for renovating historic government buildings in your community:

• Check out “Historic Train Depot Breathing New Life Into One Small Town” for information on how renovations in a small western Washington town may be just the change that the town needed to attract new tourism.
• Read through the answers to a user-generated question called “Old municipal buildings” for insights on finding grants for the renovation of historic local buildings.
• The City of Lake Forest, Illinois’ “LAKE FOREST HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE - ICMA” ordinance offers a great example of an application process to change landmarks or historic structures, called the Certificate of Appropriateness requirement.
• Learn how to work with the existing local government structures in your community to save space and money “Asset-Based Economic Development: Building Sustainable Small and Rural Communities,” a briefing paper from the ICMA Center for Sustainable Communities.
• In the PM feature story “Saving Part of One City's History,” you can see how the Alexandria Historic Preservation Commission (AHPC) from Arlington, Louisiana was able to restore a culturally-significant historical building that had fallen into disrepair after years of non-use

To learn more about how you can make sustainable investments in your community, browse through the Knowledge Network’s Redevelopment, Vacant Properties, Historic Preservation, and Sustainability topic pages. If you have any resources that highlight how your government has recently increased sustainability by investing in local government buildings, please share them with your peers on the Documents page.

Aloha,

James Davidson

ICMA Knowledge Network Intern

jdavidson@icma.org