Harrisonburg, Virginia

HARR I SONBURG, V I RGINI A The city proactively attracts technology development and has set up technology zones to help make that happen, offering specific incentives to steer tech companies to certain areas, one being the downtown core, and another is a technology park that the city developed. The result is a nice cluster of small technology firms in the downtown, including Rosetta Stone. Renowned for its language learning software, Rosetta Stone was founded in Harrisonburg and is now the largest tech employer downtown. Adam Fletcher, Director of Community Development, explains, “I’ve been with the city since 2004 and our downtown looks dramatically different now. The Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance program started in 2002 and since then we’ve seen several old warehouse facilities turned into mixed-use operations. The ‘Ice House’ right behind City Hall was a Cassco Ice manufacturing facility for a number of years and that has been converted into a brewery and multi-family residential units, restaurants, and a jewelry museum. Two former feed warehouse facilities have been converted to other uses. One at the north end of the city, known as City Exchange, was transformed into multi-family units and a high- end restaurant – The Local Chop & Grill House.” A second downtown feed manufacturing warehousing facility was converted into a restaurant and other retail uses, and plans are in the works for another industrial facility to be converted into residential units. Some downtown buildings in poor repair were demolished and those properties now have four and five story multi-family residential uses. One, known as Urban Exchange, has a brewery on the first floor and close to 200 multi-family units above. Another innovative project called The Colonnade features non-residential on the main floor and multi-family above. Four other breweries have located downtown, including Brothers Craft Brewing, which is housed in an old Coca-Cola bottling facility that’s also a