Florida Heritage Week

March 23-26, 2009

Here is an interesting read on the economic impact that historic preservation has on Florida.

The report cites the impact preservation has on everything from tourism to property values. And while the numbers found in the report are admittedly conservative, several conclusions can be made about the final results, including:

Historic preservation creates jobs in Florida.
More than 123,000 jobs were generated in Florida from historic preservation activities during 2000. The major areas of job creation include the manufacturing sector,
retail trade sector, services sector, and construction sector.

Historic preservation makes a substantial contribution to tax collections for Florida state and local governments.
More than $657 million in state and local taxes were generated from spending on historic preservation activities during 2000.

Visitors to Florida spend billions of dollars while visiting historic sites. More than $3.7 billion was spent in Florida by tourists who visited historic sites. The tourists are lured by Florida’s historic sites, historic museums, state parks, and archeological sites. There are more than 1,400 Florida listings in the National Register of Historic Places and more than 135,000 historic structures and archeological sites in the Florida Master Site File of historic sites.

Historic preservation helps to maintain property values in Florida. In at least fifteen of the eighteen cases studied, property in historic districts appreciated greater than in the non-historic comparison neighborhoods. No instance was found where historic designation depressed property values.