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Rethinking Institutional Properties
Embracing Our Past and Investing in Our Future
I. PLANNING
A. Inventory of Institutional Buildings and Properties
The first step in planning for reuse is to know where institutions are
located in a community. Maintaining an institutional inventory not only
aids the municipality in planning for potential reuse of buildings but can
also act as a marketing tool, providing prospective developers with key
information to identify desirable, adaptable properties. The inventory can
be completed separately or can be part of a larger planning effort, such as
a comprehensive plan update. Municipalities can make use of a Geographic
Information System (GIS) to map and analyze institutional properties.
GIS is an effective tool to understand and visualize the interrelationship
between land use and planning and to help guide policy decisions.
B. Comprehensive Plans
The comprehensive planning process is an opportunity for municipalities to
be proactive in identifying and prioritizing institutional properties for reuse
and proposing new uses for them. Many comprehensive plans include
an inventory of existing institutional uses and a statement of planning
priorities for these properties, including desirable types of reuse.
C. Open Space Plans
Significant landscapes associated with institutions should be identified and
placed within the context of the municipality’s larger planning objectives.
These plans take an inventory of a municipality’s open space and natural
resources and can be expanded to include open space areas that are part
of a large institutional use.
D. Official Maps
Municipalities can identify an institutional property on an Official Map if it
is a planned location for a future public use such as a municipal facility,
park, or trail. When a property becomes available for development, the
municipality is given a limited opportunity to decide whether to negotiate
with a landowner to acquire or otherwise preserve the key features of
the property.
E. Redevelopment and Revitalization Plans
Redevelopment and revitalization plans can identify eligible institutional
properties and priorities for their adaptive reuse. In these plans,
reinvigorating closed institutional properties can be integral to larger
economic development strategies for the community.
II. PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT
Municipalities can identify and plan for institutional closures before they occur by
establishing a task force to focus on the issue and work closely with developers and
the community. A task force can be a standing committee of a governing body or
it can be an ad hoc committee of elected officials, municipal staff, and volunteers.
These volunteers can include professionals in architecture, engineering, and real
estate fields who have specialized knowledge on the topic.
Institutions in Comprehensive Plans
Lower Merion Township recognizes
that institutional growth and
closure has a significant impact
on surrounding land uses and
communities, and the Institutional
Land Use chapter of the township’s
comprehensive plan encourages
adaptive reuse and recommends
that the character of residential
neighborhoods be preserved as
institutions expand, relocate, or
close.
Municipal Inventories
Quakertown Borough in Bucks
County maintains an inventory
of commercial and industrial
buildings that are a high priority
for reuse. The inventory also
identifies potential new uses
and is available to developers
interested in adaptive reuse.
