This session will illustrate and analyze inherent climate-adaptive features of old and historic places, including buildings, building components, streets and courtyards, and propose patterns for successfully enhancing them as they are adapted for new uses. The Patterns will emphasize preservation friendly retrofit strategies to reduce carbon footprint and will be based on the model and methodology created by Christopher Alexander and his colleagues in their Pattern Language work, an illustrated encyclopedia of detailed patterns for the creation and modification of the built environment. Sponsored by Indow.

How do we prepare buildings and landscapes for the new normal as climate change impacts historic resources? This panel session will explore examples to raise awareness of climate change impacts to historic resources and to develop preservation treatment and adaptation strategies. The session will explore case studies of historic sites including the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, MA and cultural landscapes throughout the US affected by climate change induced storms, fire, and pests and diseases.

Get an introduction into conducting an investigation of a historically significant property. Learn best practices for assessing exterior and interior finishes, structural and building systems, material condition, and historical integrity of historic properties. Sponsored by Unico, Inc.

The resiliency of sacred places directly impacts the resiliency of their surrounding communities because congregations and houses of worship serve as resource distribution centers, hubs for emergency care and response, and often play leading roles in the ongoing recovery efforts after a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, etc. But how can we preserve these important structures and improve their resiliency? Learn from the research of the University of Texas at San Antonio Center for Cultural Sustainability in collaboration with Partners for Sacred Places to help historic houses of worship assess their resiliency. The UTSA team will provide an overview of their work and a case study assessment, followed by a case study on a resiliency solution from a congregation from the National Fund for Sacred Places: A representative from the project to install an innovative new fire suppression system at the Holy Ascension of Our Lord Cathedral in Unalaska AK, will speak about their work.

In September of 2019, the City of Burlington released a NetZero Energy Roadmap and new initiatives to direct climate progress. At the same time, the City also started putting the report's strategies into action, and launched a slate of new programs and initiatives designed to help Burlington achieve this ambitious climate goal. Proactively, Burlington’s Certified Local Government was anxious move forward with these efforts to incorporate sensible and effective energy efficiency enhancements in historic buildings. The project evolved into a collaboration between Burlington’s Certified Local Government, Burlington Electric Department, Efficiency Vermont, and a chosen panel of building professionals. Released in the fall of 2021, Burlington’s Path to Net Zero Energy has provided a “how-to” for owners of historic properties to reduce their energy usage while systematically and sympathetically outfitting their structure in a Climate Conscious and responsible way, effectively achieving the aspirational goals of BTV NetZero.

Adapting to a changing climate and extreme hazard events isn't just about flood reduction improvements to historic buildings. Public policy and regulatory incentives can be used to minimize climate and disaster impacts on historic buildings, neighborhoods and public spaces. FEMA recognizes changes to local public policies as a necessary adaptation alternative when developing local mitigation strategies. This presentation will review policy alternatives to support climate adaptation for older and historic buildings and sites based on some national best practices. St. Augustine, Fort Lauderdale, and Pinellas County serve as models for incorporating the preservation and adaptation of historic properties and cultural resources into city planning and resilience initiatives. This session will address policies for community development, urban land use, building codes, environmental protection, incentives and finance.

Building reuse, energy retrofitting, and deconstruction are significant strategies in a community’s toolbox for achieving climate resiliency. Old buildings represent significant reserves of embodied carbon, making them good candidates for adaptive reuse and energy retrofitting initiatives like weatherization and air source heat pumps. Old buildings also present opportunities for communities on the path to decarbonization. Deconstruction, where buildings cannot be saved, prevents the loss of valuable materials and keeps them in use, promoting a circular economy. Allied preservation and reuse organizations can help policy-makers and the public to make the connection between conservation of embodied and operational carbon, preservation, and climate justice. Hear about climate action projects and policies from Ithaca, New York;, San Antonio, Texas; and Portland, Oregon.

What does the extreme influx of population mean for resiliency efforts for Miami-Dade County? The rich archaeological record of the county illustrates that modern anthropogenic climate change is not the first major significant shift Floridians have encountered, and resilience is embedded in the 10,000 years of occupation in the county. Current county efforts have focused on documenting the likelihood of various climate related factors to impact sites, and prioritize archaeological investigations of these sites based on when they might be lost. Explore Miami’s heritage at risk through a series of short videos filmed on site at different threatened locations throughout the county, which will illustrate what will have to be abandoned to rising seas, and the story of ourselves we leave behind.

Hear how the National Park Service's National Register and Historic Preservation Fund programs are working together with grantees to increase the documentation of underrepresented communities with competitive grant programs. This session highlights the success of a historic property that was included in a competitive grant funded survey for an underrepresented community, a grant to fund a national register nomination that resulted in a new diverse National Register listing. Developed in partnership with the National Park Service. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Since 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been working on the Chesapeake Mapping Initiative, a tristate effort to increase the number of African American historic sites included in state-level cultural resource information systems across the Chesapeake watershed. One of the purposes of the Chesapeake Mapping Initiative is to improve approaches for effectively connecting with minority group communities to document their history. This session will bring together contributors to the Chesapeake Mapping Initiative to reflect on the success of methods used during the life of the project and how the historic preservation field can improve in this area. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

The panel addresses diversity in Florida preservation efforts from two perspectives: that of those people and histories traditionally excluded from the formal preservation practice and diversity in how we conceive of preservation as a practice. Hear about a variety of histories including Gullah Geechee, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ heritage, by speakers who will provide examples of equitable preservation at work in local government and communities across the state. Speakers will share efforts to bring attention to underrepresented histories in traditional and creative ways, and how to incorporate these efforts into local government, communities, and online. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

How can we equitably meet the needs of preserving historic and cultural places in a way that doesn't blindly prioritize material integrity? Would adding a fifth treatment standard for Conservation to the existing Secretary of Interior Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties (restoration, reconstruction, preservation, and rehabilitation), offer a level of flexibility that does not currently exist universally in our country's preservation toolbox? Hear from practitioners one how this idea might embrace intangible elements of preservation and acknowledge the contributions by diverse communities in the built environment. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Historic places associated with less affluent communities often have different conceptions of what constitutes historic significance, resulting in issues about integrity of condition. Additionally, these communities struggle to find funding. Hear panelists from Forks of The Road (Mississippi), Abyssinian Meetinghouse (Maine), and the New Philadelphia (Illinois) talk about advocating for their significant site and how becoming recognized as a Network to Freedom Site has allowed them to find funding and support to preserve their community’s history. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Learn about three creative efforts to preserve and share Latino/a/x heritage, including one of the first historic cultural districts in the nation to recognize the Chicano Movement, an effort to preserve Chicano/a/x Community murals in Colorado, and an award-winning National Park Service interpretive program. Following extensive community engagement, one of Denver’s Chicano neighborhoods was designated as the La Alma Lincoln Park Historic Cultural District and custom design guidelines to honor the layers of physical history were developed. The Chicano/a/x Community Murals of Colorado Project, recognized on the National Trust’s 11 Most Endangered Places list in 2022, is finding new ways to identify, preserve and even restore whitewashed murals. The National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program’s Hispanic Legacies of Route 66 in New Mexico shares fresh perspectives on underrepresented communities on Route 66 and was awarded the 2022 Stanton-Horton Award for Excellence. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

Descendants of a displaced community in Providence, Rhode Island, and the city’s early preservation society are collaborating to preserve intangible culture and history. The Fox Point Cape Verdean Heritage Place Project, Inc. (FPCVHP); SPIA Media Productions, Inc.; and the Providence Preservation Society (PPS) are uniting to confront the aftermath of federal intervention, gentrification, institutional expansion, and the generational trauma of displacement. This pioneering partnership of community and preservation stakeholders advances historical equity and justice through documentation and advocacy while also acknowledging PPS’s own underestimation of past threats. Hear about public events and forums that illustrate the power of community AND preservation joining forces to thoughtfully and intentionally move beyond architectural integrity (or survival) within the built environment. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Explore local, state, and national efforts to increase representation of historically excluded Asian Americans in U.S. historic preservation work. Learn about stumbling blocks and victories, and examples of complex collaborations formed to recapture century-old neglected histories. Panelists will discuss why underrepresented history is important, and the "long game" needed for U.S. historical places to honor whole Asian American histories. Preservation of Transcontinental Railroad Chinese worker camp at Summit Tunnel #6 in the Tahoe National Forest (Truckee, CA), listed on the NTHP most endangered list for 2021 will be featured in this presentation. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Since 2021, The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the International Trusts Organization have collaborated in R.I.S.E, Re-Imagining Sites of Enslavement, a working group dedicated to those international sites which preserve and interpret a history of enslavement. In receipt of a NTHP/INTO collaboration grant, Elizabeth Chew, Winston F. Phulgence and Eola Dance discuss the importance of shared learning, and how international collaboration can help as historic sites engage in preservation and interpretive work, from climate change to descendant engagement. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

From 1969 to 1979, gay-rights pioneer and activist Dr. Lilli Vincenz lived at a duplex in Arlington, Virginia, where she hosted the Gay Women’s Open House every Wednesday, providing a safe space for lesbians, bisexual women, and women questioning their sexuality to hold discussions and build a supportive network within the gay community. The property is the focus of a pilot study for Arlington County, Virginia’s Historic Preservation Program, which is embarking on an effort to identify, document, and celebrate places and events associated with LGBTQ+ Americans—narratives that have been overlooked or withheld in many municipalities. This presentation will provide an overview of the study’s purpose, methodology, and findings, including a discussion of the primary and secondary resources that are available and may help identify other significant LGBTQ+ properties in Virginia and the United States. Preservation issues to be highlighted include documenting recent and complex histories, assessing additional significance of landmarked sites through the lens of LGBTQ+ heritage, considering community outreach and engagement, and exploring local landmark status and interpretation in a changing neighborhood. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

At the end of September 2023, authorization of the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) will expire and legislation reauthorizing the program will need to be enacted. This session will examine the importance of the HPF to communities across the country. In addition to the important role of funding State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, the HPF supports seven competitive grant programs that are helping transform the preservation and documentation of underrepresented and diverse histories. Attend this session and hear how the HPF has breathed life into long-untold stories and has helped communities protect places that form our cultural identity. Learn how you can support efforts to reauthorize the HPF and transform the future of Congressional funding for historic preservation. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

Visually, there is no other city like Opa-locka. Founded in 1926 it was developed based on a One Thousand and One Nights theme and has perhaps the most Moorish Revival architecture of any city in the United States, conveying the fantasy elements portrayed in the Middle Eastern Folk Tales. This actualization of a dream continued throughout the city's history with the inaugural run of the Seaboard Airline Railroad’s famous Orange Blossom Special and Amelia Earhart's dream of being the first woman to fly around the globe starting at the Opa-locka airport. In 2021, Opa-locka was added to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation's 11 to Save program, its list of the most endangered historic places in Florida. Now, the community has a new dream, that through preserving the built reminders of the city's remarkable past and applying Main Street's economic and community development principles, this historically Black community will strengthen and thrive, keeping neighborhoods together without folding to nearby Miami's encroaching development pressures. Sponsored by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

This session explores different approaches to cultural preservation in American Chinatowns. Historic Chinatowns are increasingly facing a variety of pressures that threaten the ecosystems that sustain Chinatown communities and the ability to uphold Chinatown heritage for future generations. Chinatowns are situated in vastly different physical, regulatory, and development contexts. In these contexts, the solutions to cultural preservation are equally as diverse. Learn how Chinatowns are exploring and implementing place-based strategies and policies to preserve Chinatowns for future generations while centering community priorities in their visions for the future.

This presentation will address the two primary groupings of codes affecting building repair and maintenance: those used for construction projects; and those used to establish minimum property standards for buildings. The prior will include a focus on the most commonly used model in the U.S., the International Existing Building Code, as well as address requirements for accessibility and energy conservation. The latter will highlight the housing and minimum property standards that provide a lower level of protection for the nation's most vulnerable buildings and their residents. Sponsored by Sandvick Architects.

Even small money can make a big difference in small towns. Representatives of a four-state nonprofit historic preservation partnership for rural development will offer strategies for investing in facilities for child care, arts, local food, and other entrepreneurial community services. The panelists will discuss how to support novice developers, measure and celebrate short- and long-term community and economic development impacts, and invite questions and discussion in a session designed to provide practical information and inspiration.

Do you have a "white elephant" building in your community that is in need of some TLC? See how Federal Rehabilitation Tax Incentives can help bring your white elephant project back to life, from big city to small town. Developed in partnership with the National Park Service.

This presentation will highlight ways that JEDI powers of justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and sustainability, are consciously embedded in work addressing historic landscapes and buildings. Hear about common concerns in integrating JEDI principles into planning and design processes and ways of responding to those concerns. The session will also cover strategize to implement culturally inclusive design practices. The presentation will feature a broad variety of project types sharing examples of tangible incorporation of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in heritage work.

This session is designed to complement the session "So You Have a Historic Building, Now What? Determining Costs for Real Estate Development" by sharing all you need to know about securing critical financing for your preservation project. You’ll examine how to know what you should do with a building before you purchase it, how to reimagining the economics of historic places including how to structure financing for success and understanding real estate and community impacts of preservation projects. Sponsored by Alexander Company.

Hear the ins and outs of historic tax credits and how to develop a financial plan for real estate development. This session will use a case study to illustrate costs for a historic preservation tax credit project. The presentation will include an analysis of architectural issues, engineering issues, renovation costs, financing and lending costs, negotiating a lease, and long-term building management costs. Sponsored by Alexander Company.

From its beginnings in primarily white spaces, the historic preservation field is working to become a more inclusive practice where underrepresented histories are made visible and protected. This session presents two case studies from recent advocacy efforts in Cleveland, Ohio (the Save Club Azteca and Keep Hessler Historic campaigns), as well as an overview of methods for heritage conservation that promote social inclusion in the local preservation and development process.

The Universal Life Insurance Company Building in Memphis, Tennessee, was once home to one of the top African American insurance companies. Architects Mario Walker and Juan Self will discuss how the renovation highlights sustainable features and incentives for this 33,000-square-foot building. The 1,500,000-square-foot historic Sears building (1927) had been dormant for over 20 years. LRK, led by Principal Tony Pellicciotti, worked with a nonprofit arts-based organization and its partners to redevelop the 10–story building into a “vertical urban village” that integrates residential, commercial, retail, health and wellness, arts and culture, and education. Crosstown is the largest historic adaptive reuse LEED Platinum certified project in the world.