Plan for reuse of large-format retail buildings, or work with a local school, church or commercial building to either add-on space or repurpose space into new uses.
Best Practice of this action
Keywords
schools
Rating Guideline
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Describe the expansion/reuse of a school building, church, or commercial building such as a depot or opera house. |
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Describe city actions that assisted in the expansion/reuse of a big-box building into uses other than large-format retail. |
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The expansion/reuse of a school or big-box was done with explicit attention to green building practices and/or to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Rehabilitation. |
Resources
- Known by different terms - big box abandonment, ghostboxes, greyfields - the reality of large empty building shells is not uncommon for cities. See many big-box reuse stories from around the country.
- Ferndale, WA established, by ordinance, a three-pronged approach to retail development, including big-box stores, which includes a scorecard called EAGLE (Energy efficiency, Advanced technologies, Greater good, Low impact, Economic development).
- Adaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings in Rural Minnesota (MN Extension: 2019) features 12 projects and explores how to reuse vacant buildings such as schools, depots, opera houses and churches.
- Empty office buildings are being turned into vertical farms (Smithsonian Magazine, 2023), using underutilized space for local food.
- The city's economic development talent and contacts can assist a school program, faced with declining enrollment, to remain in its building by leasing building space.
Order Number
3
Action Type
Finite