Options: New, old ... or mix
DDA and HPC leaders are given a primer on redevelopment choices for historic districts.
What track should Rome take to focus on both sustainability and economic development when it comes to preserving the historic integrity of downtown Rome? Architect Mark Cochran told members of both the Downtown Development Authority and Rome Historic Preservation Commission that having a good grasp on the identity of the historic district was critical to making the decisions that will impact the future.
Moving forward, Cochran said community leaders are faced with the choice of a modernist preservation theory or more of a traditional approach to preservation. The modernist theory advocates that when a historic property is added on to, it should be built to reflect the time when it was added. The traditional approach preaches uniformity.
“If you’re building something new there, it better not look like it belongs in 2018,” Cochran added. “What we as a city have to struggle with is, which one do we want to be?” Cochran asked.
Cochran showed members of the two agencies one historic photograph of buildings in downtown Rome after another for close to 20 minutes Thursday. He said that if Rome had a historic preservation ordinance in effect decades ago, many of the beautiful old buildings would still exist today.
“The economic impact of the Streetscape in 1986, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to measure. If we made one brilliant move that happened in Rome the past 50 years, that was it,” Cochran said. He said the investment by the city, business and property owners showed they were all serious about revitalization.
The architect said that rehabbing some of the historic old buildings can easily generate rent of $2,000 a month.
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“That’s good rent. Yeah, it costs a lot to redo the buildings — at least $130$150 a square foot including the cost of the building — but what you get in return is amazing, it can actually cash flow now,” Cochran said. Cochran told the leaders that real estate appraiser Harry Brock had told him that Broad Street generates more revenue per square foot than anyplace else in the entire city.
Rome Community Development Director Bekki Fox also spoke with the DDA and HPC leaders about the RomeFloyd County Land Bank and its efforts to get dilapidated, tax delinquent properties back on the active tax rolls. “We sell the worst of the worst,” Fox said.
Thus far, the program, which started a decade ago but was dormant for much of the past decade, has generated over $103,000 in sales of properties.
“We don’t discourage demolition,” Fox added, in stark contrast to the message that Cochran delivered “We’re not a land dump authority.”