New jobs & business technology requirements also require new construction… NOT

Just saw this. IBM is opening up a ‘new’ facility in downtown Dubuque Iowa. With it is planned over 1,000 IT jobs. It’s a great story and a huge win for this city. What I found interesting is that this technology dependent company is moving into an ‘old’ building. A building that will certainly need to meet the technology, OSHA and other infrastructure demands of this tech company.

The term is ‘adaptive reuse’. Its when old buildings are renovated for contemporary uses often very different then their original purpose. It’s often too easy simply to declare that an old building is unsuitable for the fiercely competitive demands of contemporary business and industry. Adaptive reuse is cast as pollyanna or for luddites. The expedient solution lobbied for is often demolition or new development over existing open land requiring additional investment in the expansion of infrastructure.

In the case of Dubuque it would seem part of the draw for IBM was proximity to the city’s colleges/universities along with proximity to other city services, retail, restaurants, lodging, arts & entertainment. We’ve some wonderful examples of adaptive reuse here in Beloit most notably ABC Supply and the Visit Beloit building but also the Arts Incubator, the library and others. It would seem there’s been a lot of demolition in Beloit’s past. I look forward to more adaptive reuse in Beloit’s future.

Thanks to Dr.Bob for pointing out the IBM/Dubuque story to me.