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Heritage Strategies International provides professional, high quality education, information and technical assistance that encourages the economically productive use of heritage resources. Please visit our Services page for more information.
Donovan Rypkema is president of Heritage Strategies International. HSI was established in 2004 as a companion firm to PlaceEconomics, a consulting firm of which Rypkema is the principal. PlaceEconomics – 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 seven Canadian Provinces. HSI was formed to extend internationally the services that have been provided primarily in North America over the past 20 years.
On an international level Rypkema has worked directly with business leaders in Japan on issues of downtown revitalization; officials in Thailand regarding historic preservation challenges; citizen groups in Russia on development and tourism strategies; and prepared heritage preservation strategies for provincial officials in China. He has spoken at international conferences in Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Malaysia, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Switzerland. He was a member of the American delegation to a US/Spain Forum on Historic Preservation and Economic Development and serves on the Board of Directors of Global Urban Development.
Rypkema was educated at Columbia University where he received a Masters of Science degree in Historic Preservation. He is author of several publications including Community Initiated Development, The Economics of Rehabilitation, The Downtown Real Estate Development Series and others. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the American Planning Association, Architectural Record, The Journal of Commercial Bank Lending, Urban Land, Real Estate Finance, Investment Decisions, Preservation Forum, The Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society and others. He also teaches a graduate course in preservation economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
An updated edition of Rypkema’s book, The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide, was published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2005 and is widely used by preservationists nationwide. In 2006 the National Center for Heritage Trusteeship released a Russian translation of the book in Moscow. Rypkema’s most recent publication is the Feasibility Assessment Manual for Reusing Historic Buildings released in 2007. He also teaches a graduate course in preservation economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Caroline Cheong is the Director of Research. She received her MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation program, where she focused her studies on the management and planning for historic sites. She was a 2007 US/ICOMOS International Exchange Intern, during which she worked in Al Houson, Jordan on the rehabilitation of an historic convent into a community center. Her thesis focused on sustainable tourism and indigenous communities in Peru’s Lake Titicaca. Cheong was a 2008-2009 Graduate Intern at the Getty Conservation Institute where her work focused on evaluating the challenges and opportunities facing historic cities and urban settlements.
She is an able researcher and is experienced in the preparation of both publications and presentations. Cheong represented HSI at the World Urban Forum in China and Rio de Janeiro and completed an analysis of the economic impact of the state historic tax credit in Delaware, for which she was responsible for all research. She is fluent in Spanish, has working knowledge of French, and basic knowledge of Chinese and Arabic.