Economic, ecological and social responsibility are three fundamental aspects of sustainable development. Several Baker Program in Real Estate students are expanding their knowledge in these areas this semester in the elective course Economics and Financing of Neighborhood Preservation and Conservation. This course is led by Nathanial Guest (M.A. ’12) and focuses on the connection between economic development and the preservation and conservation of existing communities.
Nathanial Guest is an attorney and visiting lecturer who has built his career on his passion for historic preservation. Guest founded the Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance, as well as the Keystone Market Trust. Guest is also the director for Preservation Pennsylvania and the Schuylkill River National and State Heritage Area. He serves as the Preservation Programs director and as a chairman for the National Railway Historical Society. His diverse and comprehensive background provides students with a unique perspective on sustainable development.
“The goal of the class is to understand, from idea to execution, the process of connecting needs with resources to reinvigorate communities by re-using spaces and places that are meaningful to those communities. My hope is that students in the class will better understand the basic forces of supply and demand that destroy buildings and the neighborhoods they comprise. The class will give students an opportunity to use the tools of market research, financial analysis, and funding mechanisms necessary to combat those forces” said Guest.
The structure of this elective course is unlike any other course currently offered to Baker students. The course has students focus on one comprehensive semester long project. The project requires students to assemble a feasibility study on an asset of their own choice. In order to complete this feasibility study, students are required to perform an independent market survey, a re-use feasibility study and a financial analysis on the project. “Students have the opportunity to select any building they would be interested in redeveloping and spend the semester working on adaptive reuse feasibility study addressing the issues of the market, entitlement, physical structure and financing. It’s a unique course which directly deals with the intersection of infill development and the preservation of existing building stock” said Ian Hunter (Baker ’15).
Offered every other fall, Economics and Financing of Neighborhood Preservation and Conservation, is a phenomenal opportunity for Cornell students to develop a new perspective on the links between community needs and the satisfaction of those needs through adaptive re-use and preservation of existing space. Additional topics covered in this course include; property valuation, market studies, re-use feasibility analysis, sources of market information, various supply and demand drivers, finance and proformas, tax incentives and rural redevelopment.
Economics and Financing of Neighborhood Conservation and Preservation is offered every other fall semester through the College of Architecture, Art & Planning. For a further look at the Baker Program in Real Estate’s course offerings, please visit http://baker.realestate.cornell.edu/
