Rethos Wrecking Ball Remarks

Dr. Heidi Swank | October 6, 2026

Preservation is really about possibility. We often talk about historic places in terms of what they have been: who built them, what happened there, and why they mattered. But increasingly, at Rethos, we are asking another question: What could this place become next?

Because across Minnesota, we have buildings sitting empty at the very same moment communities need housing. We have downtown storefronts waiting for new businesses. We have upper floors that could become homes.

We have former schools, offices, warehouses, and community spaces that already contain enormous investments of materials, energy, craftsmanship, and history. And too often, people think the easiest answer is to walk away from them. At Rethos, we know there is another answer.

A very practical, very Minnesotan answer:

Use what we already have.

Putting Vacant Buildings Back to Work

That idea is becoming more urgent. Vacant and underused buildings are a growing challenge in communities across Minnesota — from rural Main Streets to urban neighborhoods to large downtowns. And there isn't one simple solution.

That’s why I’m excited to share that Rethos recently received a $150,000 grant from the Bush Foundation to bring stakeholders from across Minnesota together around the issue of vacant buildings. This isn’t a grant to advance one particular piece of legislation. It is bigger than that.

It is about bringing together community leaders, developers, economic development professionals, preservationists, public officials, and others to make sure we understand the problem, learn from one another, and develop solutions together. Because no single organization — including Rethos — is going to solve this alone. Our job is to help get the right people into the room.

At the same time, we are advancing one tool that we believe can help: the CUB Credit, a proposed state tax credit designed to help communities put vacant and underused buildings back to work. This effort is backed by developers, banks, architects and others with Rethos at the lead. The CUB Credit is one solution.

Convening people around the larger vacant-building challenge is another. Both reflect something that is increasingly central to Rethos' role: we connect people, policy, expertise, and resources so communities have more options.

Protecting Preservation Expertise

That role is particularly important right now because some of the systems that make preservation possible are changing. Section 106 is the federal process that requires the impact on historic places to be considered when federal projects, funding, or approvals are involved. Right now, the federal regulations governing that process are being reconsidered.

And the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Preservation Partners Network have asked me, on behalf of Rethos, to serve as the point person for sharing information with preservation partners across Minnesota as this issue moves through the federal government.

I tell you because there is a much larger issue at stake. Our State Historic Preservation Offices are part of an infrastructure that helps preservation and redevelopment actually work. They review projects.

They provide expertise. And they help administer historic tax credits — one of the most important tools we have for turning difficult historic properties into housing, businesses, and productive community assets. When that system loses capacity, the work doesn’t disappear.

The queue gets longer. A developer waits longer. A housing project waits longer.

A vacant building stays vacant longer. Investment waits.

We absolutely should look for ways to make good projects easier and more efficient. Preservation should help communities move forward. But efficiency cannot mean eliminating the expertise, capacity, and community voice that allow us to make better decisions in the first place.

And this is one of those moments when Rethos needs to be at the table. We are not simply watching change happen; we are helping Minnesota navigate it.

Investing in Minnesota Main Streets

And while we advocate for strong systems, we are also bringing resources directly back into Minnesota communities. Over the last five years, Rethos has brought in nearly $1 million in federal funding to support our Main Street communities.

That includes the $700,000 Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant that we will finish this year, and also a new $250,000 grant that will allow us to work with all of our Main Street communities to develop disaster preparedness plans. That means helping communities think ahead.

What happens if there is a flood, a fire, or a severe storm? How do we protect the buildings, businesses, records, gathering places, and economic life that make a downtown a downtown?

And here is the part I think deserves more attention. Minnesota provides about $180,000 a year through the Minnesota Historical Society to help support our statewide Main Street work, and we are deeply grateful for that investment. But beyond that, there is very little ongoing state support for the Main Street program.

For comparison, Alabama invests about $2 million every biennium directly in its Main Street program. Meanwhile, Rethos has brought nearly $1 million in federal resources into Minnesota Main Street communities over just the last five years.

And right now, we are at capacity. We cannot accept another town into the program with the resources we have. That is a frustrating thing to say, because there are Minnesota communities that want this help.

They want stronger downtowns. They want to support small businesses. They want to reuse vacant buildings.

They want technical assistance, training, and the kind of support the Main Street model provides. So this is not a question of whether communities want the program. They do.

It is not a question of whether the model works. It does and has worked nationally since 1981. It is a question of whether we have the capacity to bring it to more places.

And I think Minnesota can do better.

Because when we invest in Main Streets, we are not simply investing in historic storefronts. We are investing in local businesses, housing, jobs, community gathering places, and the economic heart of towns across our state.

Opening Doors Through City Stories

But there is another side of preservation that is just as important.

Before people will advocate for a place, invest in it, or fight to keep it, they have to care about it.

And sometimes the best way to make someone care about a place is simply to open the door.

In my remarks at last year’s Wrecking Ball, I told you we were expanding Doors Open Minneapolis into something new. This May, we did it. Together with NARI Minnesota, we launched City Stories — a weeklong celebration of architecture, history, design, and the places that shape the Twin Cities.

We combined the MSP Home Tour, Doors Open Minneapolis, and roughly two dozen partner-led additional experiences across the week. People explored places they had walked or driven past for years. They went behind the scenes.

They learned about architecture, infrastructure, neighborhoods, history, reuse, and design. And nearly 90 percent of our ticketed events sold out.

People are hungry for this. They are curious about their communities. They want to know the stories around them.

They want to understand how places work. They want to feel connected to where they live. And I believe that connection matters enormously.

Because City Stories isn’t just about creating tours. It’s about creating preservationists — even if they don’t call themselves preservationists yet.

That is the continuum of Rethos’ work. We help someone fall in love with a place. We help a community imagine what an empty building could become.

We bring people together to solve the barriers standing in the way. We advocate for the policies and incentives that make reuse financially possible. We help bring investment into communities.

And when the systems supporting this work are threatened or changing, we make sure Minnesota has information, expertise, and a voice.

Giving Communities More Options

That is why your support matters. You aren’t simply helping Rethos save old buildings.

You are helping communities have options: the option to deconstruct instead of demolish; the option to turn an empty upper floor into housing; the option to bring a storefront back to life; the option to prepare a downtown before disaster strikes; the option to tell a story that has been overlooked; and the option to say, “This place still has something to give us.”

There will always be pressure to start over, to assume newer is easier, to believe that something old has reached the end of its usefulness. But we know better.

We have seen what happens when someone looks at a vacant building and sees housing, when someone looks at a struggling downtown and sees opportunity, and when someone opens a door that has been closed for decades and suddenly hundreds of people want to walk through it.

Preservation is not about preventing change. It is about having a voice in how change happens.

It is about recognizing the value of what we already have. And it is about giving our places — and the people and communities connected to them — another future.

Thank you for investing in Rethos. Thank you for helping us bring people together. Thank you for helping us bring resources home.

Thank you for giving us the ability to be at the table when decisions are being made. And thank you for believing, as we do, that the places we have inherited aren’t simply reminders of where we’ve been. They can be part of the answer to where we go next.

Let’s keep using what we already have. And let’s keep imagining what it can become. Thank you.