Ellensburg Downtown Association
Director's Corner

In her book "the Nature of Economies" the late Jane Jacobs defines economic development as differentiation emerging from generality. Simply put, economic development occurs when a business or a location possesses unique characteristics that allow it to stand out from the alternative choices

In downtown Ellensburg one of the most visible and defining differences that sets downtown apart from other business districts is the abundance of intact and reasonably well-preserved historic buildings. These historic buildings are valuable community assets in and of themselves as they represent our community's heritage and sense of place. Their preservation, restoration  and adaptive reuse, is also the foundation for the Ellensburg Downtown Association’s revitalization efforts.

Downtown Ellensburg’s historic buildings are unique to Ellensburg.  Some communities have invested literally millions of dollars to develop "new" downtowns that look historic; other communities have spent just as much developing faux Bavarian or wild-west themes for their downtowns in an effort to attract more customers.  Ellensburg has chosen instead to reinvest in the preservation and rehabilitation of our existing historic buildings, revitalizing our downtown instead of rebuilding it as something that it never was.

The businesses occupying many of downtowns historic buildings represent new and retained jobs in our local community. The fact that the majority of these businesses, are locally owned and operated is also significant since the earnings from these businesses is retained here in our community.   And equally important, these businesses provide many of the daily goods and services needed by local customers from accounting services, restaurant choices, hardware, dry cleaning, and even social services.  This broad mix of retail and professional services is an important ingredient in the vitality and functionality of a healthy downtown.  It’s also what’s missing from downtown’s that ‘theme’  themselves to represent a history, or a character that they never really had in order to attract a few tourists.

Downtown economic development efforts emphasizing the restoration and reuse of historic buildings have the added value of doing more for the larger local economy and creating more local jobs than similar efforts emphasizing new construction. Real estate economist Donovan D. Rypkema noted in a 1995 study for the Preservation Alliance of Virginia, Virginia's Economy and Historic Preservation,:

"The rehabilitation of historic structures is generally cost competitive with new construction but is much more labor intensive. The net effect of this difference is that the local economic impact of construction expenditures on older buildings is significantly greater than on new buildings. Each million dollars spent on rehabilitation and restoration will create 3.4 more jobs than the same amount spent on new construction. Each $1million spent on the rehabilitation of historic buildings creates 15.6 construction jobs and 14.2 jobs elsewhere in the local economy."
 
Our ability to recognize our historic architecture as a resource for economic development will be what sets our downtown apart and differentiates Ellensburg from other communities.

Timothy Bishop, CMSM
Guest Column for Ellensburg Daily Record February 2007

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