CED Convocation Speaker and BLA alumna Holly Wiedemann pours planning, preservation and passion into a career developing affordable housing.
Growing up on a Kentucky farm, Holly Wiedemann, BLA ‘78, always felt a connection to the disciplines that would define her career.
“I’ve always had a connection to the land,” said Wiedemann. “At a young age my grandmother felt it was important to introduce me to the notion of landscape architecture. She was really ahead of her time.”
Her love of the land, a childhood spent in a late 18th century farmhouse and her grandmother’s wisdom set her on an early trajectory toward landscape architecture, and a fondness for historic preservation.
It was around middle and high school when Wiedemann’s grandmother planted the seeds of a career in landscape architecture in her mind. Those seeds led her to the University of Georgia’s School of Environment and Design (now College of Environment and Design).
“I loved the University of Georgia and the campus, just the historic nature of it,” said Wiedemann. “I also just loved the [Founders Memorial] Garden.”
Denmark Hall, while now the home of the Master of Landscape Architecture program, served as the home of the landscape architecture program from the 1950s to the 2010s.
The Denmark Days
At UGA, Wiedemann threw herself into the opportunities available to her as a student. She spent a summer studying landscape architecture in Italy through the UGA Cortona Program and was a member of the Demosthenian Literature Society. This year, Wiedemann was elected to the society’s Wall of Fame.
As a landscape architecture student in the mid-seventies, Wiedemann can recall late nights in Denmark Hall, getting ready for next-morning critiques.
“We would be up pulling all-nighters, sleeping on the cross brace of our drawing tables,” said Wiedemann. “The coffee machine in the bottom of Denmark Hall would actually run out– it would be the worst coffee you ever tasted– but we just needed it to stay up.”
Near the end of her undergraduate years, Wiedemann received the Neel Reid Scholarship, the CED’s oldest and most prestigious award given to landscape architecture students.
With the funds from the scholarship, Wiedemann bought a ticket to the United Kingdom to spend several months studying English and Scottish gardens– another dream seeded by her grandmother, who introduced her to famous English landscape architects like Capability Brown and Humphry Repton.
“I was determined to squeeze every penny– or farthing– into a copper wire,” said Wiedemann. “I bought a British rail pass before I went over, and all the gardens that I wanted to see were way off the beaten path. I would catch a train to what would be the closest small town and then get on my bicycle and bike to wherever it was.”
From Gardens to Grids
Wiedemann in front of the old Fayette County Courthouse in Lexington, Kentucky as it undergoes construction. Wiedemann’s company, AU Associates, did an adaptive reuse project on the 1898 Richardsonian courthouse to restore it to its former glory and allow for new use.
When Wiedemann returned to the states, she made a call to Jack Crowley, her mentor and former professor. At the time, Crowley was directing city planning in Tulsa, OK. Crowley would later go on to serve as dean of the CED from 1996 to 2006.
“I called him because I wanted to have him connect me to his friend in D.C.,” said Wiedemann. “And he said, ‘Why don’t you come out to Tulsa?’ And I said, ‘Tulsa? I don’t even know where Tulsa is.’”
But to Tulsa she went. Under Crowley, Wiedemann worked in urban planning and helped develop Tulsa’s fire master plan. Wiedemann then went on to work in business development for the firm Urban Design Group, working on large mixed-use projects across the country, including the Tabor Center in Denver and the Rivercenter in San Antonio. While the work was rewarding, Wiedemann realized that she needed more leverage in the field.
“I was sick and tired of developers saying, ‘We can’t afford this so you need to redraw this,’” said Wiedemann. “After several iterations of that, I thought, ‘you know what, I need to learn the financial side so I can tell somebody what the situation is and what we can do, because I’m tired of being told what to do by developers.’”
Building a Career in Adaptive Reuse
Shortly after, Wiedemann drove from Tulsa to Durham to start Duke University’s MBA program. After graduating with her MBA, Wiedemann started a job with WinnDevelopment in Boston, one of the largest developers of affordable housing in the country. Soon, however, life events brought Wiedemann and her family back to the farm she grew up in Kentucky, while in the middle of managing a 500-unit development.
“I loved everything about Boston, but we decided to buy the farm and move back,” said Wiedemann. “I think I was probably one of the first examples of working remotely, because it was such a complex project in Boston. I would do all the numbers for the construction draws and then FedEx them up every Friday.”
Wiedemann’s first adaptive reuse project: Adaptive reuse of the 1936 Midway Elementary School into mixed-income apartments for seniors.
After finishing the project with WinnDevelopment, Wiedemann realized the opportunity for similar developments in Kentucky. In her remote work, she developed a template for restructuring and refinancing. So, she started consulting, and soon had finished her first project, an adaptive reuse of a historic school into affordable mixed-income housing for seniors.
“There was a huge need, and nobody had ever done that before because they just tear down old buildings in other parts of the country, but not in Boston,” said Wiedemann. “And I thought, there’s a world of potential in all of these old, abandoned schools and buildings that are located in beautiful residential neighborhoods.”
She had found her niche. Over the next several years, her consulting turned into AU Associates, a developer of mixed-use and affordable housing throughout Kentucky and West Virginia, of which Wiedemann serves as founder and president. For the first 15 years, Wiedemann led adaptive reuse projects in historic buildings, and the firm thrived on word-of-mouth recommendations– one project would lead to the next.
Today, AU Associates has grown to nearly 60 employees and has expanded to develop new builds and urban infill in addition to adaptive reuse projects.
“Having the education from the University of Georgia in that particular field and the skill sets that I was able to derive from being there really form the foundation for being able to do everything I love,” said Wiedemann. “Historic preservation, land use planning, design and the important need of creating affordable housing.”
Artek Lofts, an AU Associates 38-unit contemporary urban infill project in downtown Lexington, Kentucky.
