The reuse of existing buildings will become an increasingly favorable option in the building industry over the next decade, and there are several reasons why that is the case.

First, the American population will see about 50 million more seniors as baby boomers edge closer to retirement, reaching an estimated 85 million people 65 and older by the year 2050. There are approximately twice as many baby boomers than those comprising the Generation X demographic, though Generation Y, which immediately follows Generation X, is larger. As a result, there will be more jobs than qualified and available workers in the coming years. The need to outsource and subsequently send jobs overseas will increase. Companies also will shrink due to technology, job consolidation or financial necessity.

Second, the demand for new real estate will decrease. New buildings will not be getting new tenants; rather, there will be a move of existing tenants from older buildings leaving those older buildings, many of which aren’t actually very old, yet still viable and workable enough to be renovated and refurbished for future use. Renovation will become a big trend in the construction business. Many industrial buildings will be used for housing and the same will be true for commercial buildings.

Third, in terms of sustainability, the building industry has been one of the single largest contributors to environmental degradation. Materials emit fumes through off-gassing, many construction materials are oil- or coal-intensive, and almost all machinery and transportation or construction relies on fossil fuels.

Renovating instead of building from scratch allows us to dramatically reduce our environmental footprint. Rehabilitating a building will become more attractive to private citizens and businesses in the future.

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, buildings consume 30 percent of our total energy and 60 percent of our electricity annually. A typical construction project generates 2.5 pounds of solid waste per square foot of floor area. If new buildings can be designed responsibly and older buildings can be reused whenever feasible, it will lead to a greater protection of the environment. Along with sustainability, terms like “green building” and “high-performance building” denote a renewed effort to design and construct with increasing environmental responsibility.

Beck, a real estate services firm based in Dallas, has made it a priority to design and build using sustainable principles. All of the organization’s managing directors and more than half of its project managers are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-accredited professionals, or LEED AP, with the goal of all project personnel being accredited by 2010. Increasingly, local governments and corporations are adopting policies to ensure that their building endeavors will be LEED-certified.

Public Policy

One should expect governmental policy at the federal and local levels to foster the re-use of buildings as well. As we see more voters identify with environmentally friendly policy-making, there likely will be more legislation to use less of the world’s resources and provide incentives for “smart” building practices, including re-use.

Location will play a key factor as well, as proximity will continue to remain a top priority. There will be a continuous desire to re-use buildings within urban centers as opposed to building new structures in suburban and exurban locations. This is something we are seeing today in many of our large cities, and the trend will continue. There is less land available in our urban cores and most of the easily developed land already has been developed. Many of the sites that remain are either logistically challenging or too costly, making the re-use of existing buildings an attractive proposition.

For the His Hands Church project in Woodstock, Ga., the Beck Group was tasked to take big-box retail chain, a former K-Mart, and transform it into a dynamic facility for a new church. The project is an example of non-conventional adaptive reuse. The firm’s view on success for the project was that one would not be able to tell that the 123,000-square-foot building was anything other than a church in its lifetime.

The project required demolition of the entire interior of the space and an interior buildout with a 1,500-seat adult worship center, a 500-seat youth worship center, a children’s church, a coffee shop, classrooms, meeting areas, office space, fellowship and common areas, a kitchen and a restroom. The firm popped up a 17,000-square-foot section of the roof to ensure the worship center had the desired site lines to the raised stage. The church was adamant that the worship floor stayed flat, so as to provide flexibility of use, especially during weekdays.

Big-box retail typically does not have windows, so the firm pierced the skin of the existing building to provide windows into the classroom spaces. The existing retail front was torn off and replaced with a new main entry that spoke to the culture and vision of the ministry, giving it a recognizable human scale.

The exterior parking lot was completely redesigned and features new landscaping, a new entry plaza and decorative lighting. The desire of the ministry was to extend the worship experience into the parking lot, and to begin to tell the story of the ministry from a person who enters the church grounds by car. The firm placed bronze statues of people of various ethnicities, ages and genders in the plaza to exemplify the openness and warmth of the congregation.

One must also consider that many existing buildings offer a historical context to the cities and themselves often become icons and markers within the fabric of a city. They either are or contribute to the “sense of place” that has become a part of the cultural spirit of the times. In a time where words like “authentic” and “throw-back” work their way into daily vernacular, the architectural equivalent is viable as well. Architecture tells a story and reflects the times in which it was built in a most accurate way. Many buildings of the past deserve the opportunity to live on well into the future. With some clever thought and creative attitude, hopefully all will see the re-use of the buildings of yesteryear and allow them to live on into the future in a viable and sustainable way.