Preservation & Reactivation Plan for Downtown Selma

Student team: Scott Gerlica, Faye Messner, Cyrus Yerxa, Calvin Nguyen, Haoyi Shang, Miles (Chengjun) Wu

In the fall of 2022, a Weitzman School of Design Historic Preservation studio team explored how historic preservation could be leveraged to support economic development in Selma, Alabama. The result is this preservation and reactivation plan – focused on repair in every sense of the word, and connecting Selma's deeply significant heritage to its economic future. A city known worldwide for its role in the Civil Rights Movement, Selma has had little economic investment or prosperity since. For this project, the studio team’s specific study area was a roughly twenty-two block core along the northern bank of the Alabama River, synonymous with downtown Selma. As the city’s historic commercial center, and retaining much of its late nineteenth century architectural and urban fabric, downtown Selma served as an appropriate focal point for the studio’s efforts.

The studio focused on how historic preservation could be used as a way to aid economic revitalization in downtown Selma. This project was built on two purposes: (1) to preserve, commemorate, and holistically interpret Selma’s tangible and intangible heritage in its own right, and (2) to configure these preservation efforts to support economic growth and opportunities for the city and its residents, particularly through developing a tourism economy.