Creating safe passage for historic buildings from one generation to the next.

Historic Property Redevelopment Programs: Resource Guide


Introduction

What is a historic property redevelopment program or a revolving loan fund? How can your organization transform older properties into homes, businesses, and assets for your community? A project of The 1772 Foundation and the National Preservation Partners Network, this online resource guide is a compilation of practical experience, profiles, and tools to inspire, inform, and aid. It is also a work in progress. As more sections are written, functionality will be increased, so check back often. Have a project, story, model, or tool you want to share? Email us.

What is a Historic Property Redevelopment Program (HPRP)?

Historic properties redevelopment programs (HPRPs), sometimes known as revolving funds, are proactive programs that use strategies such as purchase/resale, easements, options, tax credits and other means to preserve historic buildings. When a building is returned to private ownership (hopefully realizing a return on investment) any proceeds realized as a result of the transaction are used to rescue another endangered property.

Nonprofit preservation groups across the country have successfully repurposed thousands of buildings using these techniques. In the process, they have partnered with local stakeholders to tackle big issues, like economic revitalization, neighborhood development, equitable housing, and smart growth.

Groups are working not only to stabilize the built environment of their communities, but also to address the social, environmental, and economic issues endemic to their localities. Foundations and other funding sources provide real estate education, fellowships, feasibility studies, and business plans, in addition to providing working capital to existing programs through grants and loans. Active real estate intervention of the kind practiced by HPRPs is critically important to the field of historic preservation.

A community effort in partnership with the Preservation Trust of Vermont and the Albany Community Trust, "the Genny" was rehabilitated and is once again a village gathering place. Photo credit: Albany Community Trust.

Models

Historic property redevelopment programs take a variety of forms, ranging from acquisition to homeowner grants to everything in between. Several involve partnerships with cities, state government, land trusts, and other non-profits. Below are some of the most common models with links to more information about each.

  • BUY, REHAB, SELL
  • RENTALS
  • LOAN LOSS RESERVES
  • COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTS
  • LOANS
BUY, REHAB, SELL

Buy, Rehab, Sell

One of the fundamental ways that nonprofits are able to keep reinvesting in neighborhoods is to sell the property once it is stabilized or rehabilitated. Earned revenue is put back into the fund to finance additional projects. Photo credit: The L'Enfant Trust.

RENTALS

Rentals

HPRPs often sell the property, either before or after it is rehabbed. In some cases, program administrators choose to retain ownership of the properties for an extended time and use rental income or long-term lease models to sustain the maintenance costs and invest back into the program. Photo credit: Newport Restoration Foundation.

LOAN LOSS RESERVES

Loan Loss Reserves

Loan loss reserves can be a powerful tool to share the risk and enable an organization to take on or complete a project that would otherwise be impossible. For example, private foundations can guarantee loans from lenders that might be too risky without a guarantee or make a direct loan to a deal that is higher risk and therefore not appealing to traditional lender.

COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTS

Community Land Trusts

The community land trust model is often used to create and sustain affordable housing in hot markets. A powerful tool that protects historic buildings, increases housing options for individuals and families, and helps stabilize real estate in hot markets. Photo credit: Townsite Community Land Trust.

LOANS

Property Owner Loans

Access to capital for stabilization, repairs, and rehabilitation, or to correct code violations, is a powerful tool to ensure a property’s survival and continued or new use. Preservation organizations around the country provide low or even no-interest loans to property owners to repair their homes or businesses and to buy time for a new use. Photo credit: Preservation Buffalo Niagara.

Advice

There are entire books and publications on the subject of historic property redevelopment, which we encourage you to read (see reference library below). What follows is not meant to be comprehensive, but an overview of advice on a variety of topics, from acquiring properties, to creative partnerships, to ensuring long-term affordability. Click a topic below to learn more.

Selling Properties (or Not)

Evolving Your Fund

Low/No Interest Loans

Partnerships

Neighborhood Approach

Compatible Infill Housing

Hot Markets

Reference Library

Follow the button below to access the reference library, which includes books, articles, videos, and other information related to revolving funds, historic property redevelopment programs, easements, and more. They range in time from the genesis of revolving fund programs in the 1970s to today, providing an archive of the structures and impacts of these important tools.

People and Projects

A changing sample of the people and projects that are transforming lives, neighborhoods, and whole communities.

Historic Boston, Incorporated: Fowler Clark Epstein Farm

The Fowler Clark Epstein Farm, in Mattapan, MA, built between 1786 and 1806, is now a center for urban farming education and training. Historic Boston, Inc. worked with the Urban Farming Institute and other partners to rehabilitate the house, barn, and land in the middle of a densely-populated neighborhood in Boston.

Photo credit: Peter Vanderwarker

Townsite Community Land Trust

New homeowners, thanks to the work of the Townsite Community Land Trust in Flagstaff, AZ, which creates permanently affordable housing while preserving historic homes.

Photo credit: Townsite Community Land Trust

African Heritage Co-Op and Preservation Buffalo Niagara

Leadership of The African Heritage Co-Op and Preservation Buffalo Niagara in Buffalo, NY. An early recipient of Preservation Buffalo Niagara’s Revolving Loan Fund, the co-op will rehab a historic building for the new home of a community operated co-op that promotes health and wellness, provides jobs, empowers communities, and uses an ownership model to secure their food system.

Photo credit: The African Heritage Co-Op