How a 'tour of empty buildings' saved an Iowa town and may offer new hope for downtown London

As London, Ont., looks to have a conversation about what to do with its dozens of vacant buildings, an American woman from Webster City, Iowa, who rebuilt her community's downtown by offering an "empty building tour" has some insight. 

With a vacancy rate of almost 28 per cent, according to commercial realty firm CBRE, London's downtown is among the most deserted in the nation, where 1.2 million square feet of commercial office space sits empty — the equivalent of six Budweiser Gardens.

When Deb Brown became the director of the local Chamber of Commerce in Webster City in 2013, her community of 8,000 was facing a similar problem: it had 14 empty buildings along its main street, 10 of which she helped fill within 18 months of coming into her job. 

"I knew that people wanted to hear the stories of those buildings, like what was in there before and what's the history on it and what could possibly be there? It was a safe way to talk about those buildings without being ridiculed," said Brown.

A tour of empty buildings

"So we just created the tour of empty buildings," she said. "A month later we held it."

Brown said to create the tour, she spoke with dozens of people, from real estate agents, to local businesses, the historical society, even as she puts it, "the old guys down at the coffee shop." 

Marketing firms helped send word of the tour across the state, while an engineering firm drew up a map that could be downloaded from the Chamber of Commerce's website. 

"The tour was from 4:00 to 7:00 and you could just go to whatever building you want," she said.  "We had some of our older retired chamber champions in each building with either the owner or the realtor.

"Because you know you want to see what's behind that door. What does the basement look like? You know, all those specifics you don't normally get to see in a building.

"People are innately curious and I knew that too," she said. "It was a good evening."

To sell a building, the community must tell its story

Brown said that despite some critics who didn't like the idea of highlighting the town's eyesores, they kept at it and, after 18 months, their efforts paid off. 

Webster City saved its movie theatre, gained a new church, a restaurant, plumber's service, a furniture store, law office and many other businesses. In all, six buildings were sold and four were rented.

"What made it successful was the continuing of telling the stories," she said, adding that without naming the prospective client, the chamber relentlessly advertised when someone was interested in touring a building, creating anticipation for when a business finally moved in.

"When we finally had a business move in, the local radio station covered it, the local newspaper covered it, we wrote press releases, we shared it all over social media. 

"It's important we keep telling the story and by 'we,' I mean people in the community."

Since then, Brown has turned her tour idea into a business called Building Possibility, where she offers advice to small towns across America looking to revive their ailing main streets. She was even featured by Ted Talks. 

Many of London's most storied buildings sit empty

In London, the idea has promise. Many of the city's empty buildings are among its most storied and beloved architectural gems, including Old City Hall, the Wright Building, the Elsie Perrin Williams Memorial Library and the Mechanic's Institute, to name a few.

Three city councillors — including Skylar Franke, Sam Trosow and David Ferreira — did their own impromptu walking tour of some of the city's empty buildings, looking at their potential to convert them into residential buildings. 

"We just wanted to do a tour of some of the vacant buildings in downtown London, and specifically looking at ones that had the potential to be converted from office to residential," Franke said. 

"Staff were pointing out which ones would be easy to convert and which ones wouldn't. So as I've learned, it kind of depends on how many windows the building has, what the floor plans looks like, but there's some that are easier than others."

Under the Ontario Building Code, bedrooms must have at least one window, which means some of the city's vacant buildings may never be converted to residential use.The city currently has no program that oversees the conversion of empty offices into apartments. 

Franke said that if someone in London were to create their own empty building tour, she would welcome it. 

"I think it's a great idea. I'd love to see, you know, maybe heritage group or an architecture group or an urban group put that together and offer it to the community," she said, adding downtown London has a lot of untapped potential. 

"We have lots of assets that exist. They're sitting there, they're vacant.

"When I was looking at them, I felt like I was wearing a pair of glasses where I was picturing like, ooh, the ground floor could be a restaurant and above could be a bunch of different apartments."