ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – Rockford is on a mission to attract people to its downtown by redeveloping historic buildings, creating restaurants and reinventing apartment complexes in old factories and warehouses.

When development companies like Urban Equity Properties take on a project. They have two options, knock the building down and start fresh, or maintain the outside while developing the inside. For Urban Equity Properties, its decision to maintain buildings is resulting in success. The company has been taking advantage of the State’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit. The program provides a state income-tax credit equal to 25% of a project’s qualified rehabilitation expenditures. Urban Equity Properties took advantage of that.

“They promote saving those buildings as pieces of our history. secondly, they avoid having buildings demolished and going into landfills. And thirdly they promote development in Illinois specifically,” said Jeff Orduno, Chief Operating Officer for Urban Equity Properties.

Burnham loft apartment complex, a former project, maintains a 100% occupancy rate since it opened. Local leaders say they hope it continues.

“They’ve outlived their original use, and to power repurpose, and put back into active use to where they’re, you know, economic engines rather than maybe economic drains the community,” Rockford’s 14th Alderperson Mark Bonne told 23 News.

One of the projects set for completion soon is the water power loft apartments, located in the old Rockford brass works building, with an opening date set for 2023.