Junction City, Kansas 2022

An UpstairsDowntown Workshop

Dan Carmody discusses how to create a market for downtown housing including a focus on building the team to support the development of smaller buildings.

Mike Jackson details how to assess your building inventory by understanding the basics of architectural assessment. Which buildings are easier to renovate than others? Which ones have the greatest potential to create excitement for downtown living?

Dan Carmody gets into the numbers. How to assemble simple financial statements to help improve business decisions whether you are a small building owner needing to understand the profitability of upper floor development or a Main Street manager or city official trying to understand how to deliver financial incentives that may be needed to jumpstart upper floor development in your town.

Mike Jackson takes you around the country with notable case studies and a review of what incentives are available from local, state, and federal sources to improve the financial sustainability of upper floor development.

Mike Jackson highlights the recent 3-day seminar presented by the Association for Preservation Technology where creative approaches to building code application can greatly reduce the cost of upper floor development while enhancing fire safety of older buildings. Hint: sprinkler systems are not always the solution!

Randy Chick takes us on a tour of Hastings, Nebraska. Over the last fifteen years this town of 23,000 in central Nebraska has taken an incremental approach to downtown revitalization that focuses on the whole building. While great façade improvements have improved the look of downtown more than 100 new upper floor housing units have contributed to greater vitality!