In Vermont, a state program has made $1 million available to downtown property owners in hopes of invigorating upper story residential-housing redevelopment to buildings just like this on Atlantic Avenue (above) in Atlantic City.

Keeping people downtown is a lot easier when they actually live there. Cities like Miami, Florida and Burlington, Vermont, are turning to converting empty commercial space into downtown housing. Housing shortages and escalating prices are motivating factors along with the vision of a 24-hour downtown. State and city governments are driving renovations in Burlington. With almost no apartments available to rent downtown and a number of spaces above storefronts vacant and not up to code, the city's Community and Economic Development Office has encouraged property owners to take advantage of a state program making $1 million in grant money available for improvements in specified downtown areas.

"We, at CEDO, had just started looking into the smart growth concept of upper story redevelopment and saw immediately that there was a match between the goals of the Vermont Downtown Program (in offering the grant) and Burlington's need to provide incentives to downtown business owners to develop their vacant upper stories for residential or commercial space," said Owiso Makuku, waterfront development and housing coordinator for the organization. Two grants, each for $75,000, were made to two different properties, both of which had been housing historically, but had been vacant for nearly 60 years. As a result of the grant, six to eight new housing units will be created, with the $150,000 leveraging approximately four times that amount of private investment on the part of the owners. Other business owners in the area are working with CEDO to utilize different sources to fund upper story redevelopment.

While the $75,000 grants are state money, CEDO contributes legwork to clarify and negotiate the terms of the grant and to allocate a project manager to assure that the terms of the grant are carried out. At the other end of the East Coast, private developers are driving the proposed conversion of a nearly empty 15-story bank building into condominiums in Miami. The developers, Rafael Kapustin and Sergio Rok, are seeking about $3 million in subsidies from the city, Miami-Dade County, and the state for the $15 million project, according to the Miami Herald. Kapustin, who owns the building, told the paper that, while it would be easier to sell the whole the building and let someone else deal with it, no one is buying. Plans are to return the building's facade to its original 1920's look and to house 90 one- and two-bedroom condominiums, with prices starting at $100,000. About 100,000 square feet in the building have been vacant for nearly 17 years.

Courtesy of the Downtown Idea Exchange, September 1, 2001 (Vol. 48 No. 17)