Although it's a favorite tool of urbanists all over the country—Detroit has taken to adaptive reuse with singular aplomb.
Jeffrey Spivak surveys the effects of adaptive reuse in the city of Detroit, describing the city as a leader in the adaptive reuse of commercial buildings: "It is not just the redevelopment of former Class B or C office spaces into residential lofts, as has happened in so many cities. What is really flourishing in Detroit are innovative and even exotic reuses of long-vacant or historic structures."
After listing some prominent examples and also mentioning the trends reach into other nearby cities, Spivak writes that adaptive reuse is flourishing in Detroit thanks to the city's unique history of population loss and the more recent history of renewed demand for walkability and urban amenities.
Spivak goes on to describe some of the public and private initiatives that kickstarted Detroit's adaptive reuse investment environment, including the work of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and Quicken Loans chairman Dan Gilbert. The article includes a lot more detail about the city's adaptive reuse projects, as well as the many effects of such projects on the market and the communities they call home.
FULL STORY: Adaptive Use Is Reinventing Detroit
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research