Heritage Ohio Conference May 5-7 at Hyatt Cleveland

Heritage Ohio was developed as a statewide, not-for-profit organization dedicated to encouraging and assisting people and organizations to protect and preserve our heritage. Historic preservation and downtown revitalization are vitally important in the movements to protect the buildings, landscapes, art, artifacts and landmarks we have inherited.

Historic preservation and downtown revitalization enrich our quality of life, enhance our neighborhoods and revitalize communities as better places in which to live, work, celebrate and visit!

Heritage Ohio is the Statewide Main Street Coordinating Program in Ohio, as designated by the National Main Street Center.

We are also home to the statewide Heritage Ohio Annual Preservation and Revitalization Conference. This year, it will be May 5 to 7, 2009 in Cleveland OH and registration is now open. Click here to register. [1]

Keynote Speaker: Donovan Rypkema Donovan Rypkema is president of Heritage Strategies International [2]. HSI was established in 2004 as a companion firm to PlaceEconomics [3], a consulting firm of which Rypkema is the principal. PlaceEconomics [3] – widely recognized as the industry leader in the economics of historic preservation – specializes in services to public and NGO clients who are dealing with center city and neighborhood commercial district revitalization and the reuse of heritage structures. Rypkema has worked with communities in 49 States and more than 25 countries. Rypkema is the author of numerous articles and publications as well as a book, The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide [4]. He holds a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University. Rypkema served on the Board of Advisors of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is currently on the Board of Directors of Global Urban Development, and teaches a graduate course on the economics of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania.