Why Place Matters, Part II.
Can a community adapt while preserving its essence?
At Raíz Capital we believe that place matters, yet we do not focus on preserving and restoring places. We focus on preserving and restoring community. We believe that personal stories form bonds that hold our community together, and that places serve as stages where stories develop. These stages must be preserved lest the stories fade, and the bonds of community grow weaker. Yet we do not believe that places should remain frozen in time, but rather that places and people change each other. Places and people must evolve, preserving the best of the past to build the future that the community needs. This is the story of when we set out to help our community find what its future should look like.
The natural process by which species and ecosystem impact each other is called ecological or community succession. Primary succession refers to the formation of an ecological community where previously there was none, while secondary succession refers to the recolonization — by an emerging community — of an existing one after a major disturbance, such as what happens to a forest after a fire. The process of succession not only transforms habitats, but also the species that thrive in them.
Our mission at Raíz is sustainable urban revitalization, an ideal grounded in the recognition that a city, just like a natural ecosystem, is constantly engaged in a similar cycle of disturbance and renewal which affects areas of the city at different times and in different ways. Our company mission is dichotomous in that we recognize that a city is constantly evolving, yet we strive to protect as much as possible –in partnership with our fellow citizens — the things that are essential for our community to preserve, such as identity, authenticity, equitableness, inclusiveness and abundant opportunity.
The path that led us here started six years ago when I, along with a group of local investors, started renovating an abandoned hotel called La Ronda, which is located in Tegucigalpa’s Centro Histórico –also known as El Centro. Though the area was once the economically vibrant, cultural, and social heart of the city, when I started investing there it had half the density of residents as the surrounding areas. We converted the hotel to apartments and, in the process of researching and promoting the area to future residents, I realized how important it could be for our community to revitalize El Centro.
Along with local and international co-founders — including Conservatorio S.A., a company that has been working to revitalize Panama’s Casco Viejo since 2004 — we established Raíz Capital to pursue the vision of helping Tegucigalpa regain its glory as a prosperous community, with El Centro being the key to realizing our vision. We immediately zeroed in on the need to promote inclusiveness and diversity.
There are clear parallels between, on one hand, the importance of biodiversity to the health of a natural system and, on the other hand, the importance of diversity of identity, thought, role, and perspective to the health of a socioeconomic system. We believe that the edge effect — a natural process that maximizes biodiversity via an overlap occurring at the place where two habitats meet — can be used as a guiding principle to create inclusive places where socioeconomic “habitats” can overlap, and diversity can flourish.
We respect the lessons of nature and we are still exploring these parallels to evolve our theory of change. This type of thinking guided us to establish a diverse team that co-created Casa Quinchon, the conversion and renovation of a mid-century, mixed-use building into a hub for entrepreneurs and creative industries. Our building was conceived as an overlap machine, an edge effect generator. It is a place where all people, all stories and all ideas are welcome.
Over 60 years ago, the original owners, an entrepreneurial family of Chinese descent, had bought and torn down two existing homes to make way for a modern structure. From a real estate standpoint, it was a bold move at the time. The family had been part of El Centro for three generations and, for better or worse, they made the choice of altering the local environment to pursue their commercial vision. Six decades later, the place once called Quinchon León was now part of El Centro’s history and, by choosing to renovate it, that is the legacy we preserved.
The place called Quinchon came back to life again — once more in the process of secondary succession — and it was gratifying to see it full of the very people we wanted to attract: Mainly young, creative and entrepreneurial Capitalinos. It was also gratifying to know that, although we were attracting those who had never frequented the area before, many others were already a part of El Centro’s ecosystem. In either case, almost all had some connection to El Centro via their family history.
It is simple to repopulate an existing community with new ‘species’ but it is not easy to do so while respecting the existing denizens and character of a place. We set out to catalyze the urban revitalization of El Centro, but we did not set out to be agents of unmitigated gentrification. And so we were faced with important questions: Who is a native and who is considered invasive? What is the moral basis or authority for making such a distinction? What does it mean to be a ‘native’ in a changing world?
When Raíz bought its first property — Edificio Jimenez Castro, an office building less than two blocks from Casa Quinchon — it was full of tenants that had been renting there for decades. Some had been paying the same rent for over ten years, often without a contract. None were paying maintenance. We gradually increased rent but went to great lengths to listen to their needs and to preserve as many existing tenants as we could.
When some could not afford fair rent for premium units, we worked out other locations that were within their budget. We applied preferential terms for long-term, elderly tenants. In short, we made every financially reasonable effort to preserve the building’s community through agreements based on mutual respect. Most were happy to pay a little more to a landlord that was willing to invest in and update the property. Years later, over half of the building is still occupied by original tenants.
The great drama of universal life is perpetually sustained; and though the individual actors undergo continual change, the same parts are ever filled by another and another generation…
– William Buckland
The net result of our company’s efforts in these projects is that the neighborhood has evolved but retains its character. Part of our success lies in the belief that whatever inhabitants have previously taken hold in a certain place must be understood and respected. Part of it lies in the recognition that people and places change each other in a never-ending cycle.
New ‘species’ walk the neighborhood streets side by side with long-term inhabitants. Some of the latter dread the nature and pace of recent developments. But it is safe to say that, though we are all fearful of what the future may bring and we all mourn — at least a little — for what we leave behind, Capitalinos are hopeful that change is coming to El Centro.
