Hi readers!
I’m excited to launch Revived Q&A, an occasional series where I interview leaders and experts in the adaptive reuse and historical preservation space.
For the debut, let’s start things off with B. Thomas Mancuso, SIOR, of Mancuso Business Development Group. He walks us through their process of finding buildings, what determines a good project, and why adaptive reuse of existing buildings is so important—even more so in a post-COVID world.
Harrison Place, built in the 1920s. Source
This tagline from your website really jumped out at me: “Transform Old Buildings Into Job Creating Business Incubators.” To me, that’s the perfect formula. Taking unused, unloved buildings and creating jobs and community. Can you talk more about this theme and your process?
We started in 1959 as a private-sector effort to replace 2,000 lost jobs in a small community (pop. 14,000). Our success filling a million SF of, then, 80-year-old buildings with job-creating businesses, led to our being asked to help folks fill large empty factories in their towns. Our process is to identify each place’s unique opportunity (function of size, mission, resources, timing, etc.), create a plan to “bootstrap” it to self-sustainability, build a local team, and continually measure & evolve to adjust to the realities of each situation.
“Our success filling a million SF of, then, 80-year-old buildings with job-creating businesses, led to our being asked to help folks fill large empty factories in their towns.”
Does Batavia and surrounding areas have more empty industrial spaces than other places? And, how do you determine what makes a good project?
This area (Upstate NY along the Erie Canal/NYS Thruway corridor) has a long history of manufacturing so we do have a LOT of old factories. Generally speaking, the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest have an ample supply of old factories. It should be added that large old commercial and institutional properties can also lend themselves to adaptive reuse as community business centers.
Harrison Place, built in the 1920s. Source
Can you walk me through one of your recent projects: the process, choosing the building (the criteria), deciding what types of tenants you’re trying to attract, etc.
Actually, the buildings find us. A common scenario is that a local economic development organization or “right-sizing” corporate owner contacts us to sponsor the revitalization of an empty, blighted property or ease the transition out of an obsolete asset. We assess the opportunity and propose a plan that is implemented, revised, or ignored. In the case of the Harrison Place project (see photos), its space, local history, and resources indicated a focus on small industrial businesses. This initial focus has now evolved and expanded to include small commercial, office, and service businesses along with some strategically located larger manufacturing operations.
“Large old commercial and institutional properties can also lend themselves to adaptive reuse as community business centers.”
What effect will COVID have on adaptive reuse projects? I'm hearing it will have a positive one as spaces will need to pivot into new uses, etc.
COVID is a great unknown. My opinion is that it will cause more buildings to require adaptive reuse as requirements change for different property classes. What will office space look like in 2021? What is the future of “walk-in” retail? Our preference is to work on industrial buildings that encourage and support artisan makers and local manufacturers. While these will be affected, I suspect the impact may be less than on commercial, office, and hospitality sorts.
If you’re in the adaptive reuse or preservation space and have a cool project or story to share, hit us up we’d love to chat.