Here’s what sets Pago USA apart from other developers

Pago USA is different from other community developers. Let’s explore exactly what sets us apart and puts communities in the driver’s seat.

Let’s say you’re building a house from the ground up on the property you have lived on your entire life. But then your builder tells you that you won’t be able to share any of your ideas or designs with him — he’ll decide where your doors, showers and kitchen sink will go.

That builder represents how most community developers deny residents of historic towns the ability to make critical decisions about their own future. That’s not right. Pago USA believes that the people who live in the town should be the ones to determine key aspects of the project.

Pago USA is a partner, the community trust is the owner

Building a house is a difficult but strategic investment, in which the owner (not the builder) has an interest and control. The owner is the one who gets to make the decisions about everything from doors and showers to the kitchen sink.

It should be the same with any community’s strategic real estate assets. If a community wants to make a strategic investment in their downtown, they should be in charge of the decisions that impact their long-term success, not a developer who will likely sell the project for profit down the road.

That’s why Pago USA is a fundamentally different kind of downtown developer. We don’t just come into a community, buy up the buildings and then leave town. We provide guidance for how communities can invest in themselves and we work on your behalf to acquire state and federal resources to complete revitalizations.

While small communities must secure their futures by investing in their historic downtowns, what makes us different is that we partner with communities so they are in charge of the process every step of the way and have ownership of the economic heart of their own town.

Make sure the next 50 years are better

In many places, small towns are falling apart — in some cases literally. Pago has partnered with communities where bricks from historic buildings were falling onto the sidewalk.

But alongside the physical signs of age, such downtowns are also losing their ability to attract entrepreneurs, retain businesses and entice renters to live, work and enjoy their lives. And as people leave for cities and suburbs with those amenities, once-charming downtowns lose the resources they need to thrive.

It’s a vicious cycle.

Community development can kickstart the economic engines of towns in desperate need of repair by making them places where people want to live, work and play.

Profits from our projects stay on Main Street

Many developers will sell a downtown project somewhere between five to 10 years after it’s completed. The process often involves selling it to a real estate investment trust — which means ownership of the town’s vital real estate wind up hundreds or thousands of miles away.

But Pago USA is different. Our model is specifically designed to give the value of the investment back to the community, not shareholders.

Towns and villages do not have to choose between an economic death spiral and a developer who doesn’t care about the community’s vision for the downtown and long-term success. That’s where Pago USA comes in.

Unlike other developers, Pago isn’t buying and selling portions of the town. Instead, a downtown trust receives the return on investment from the revitalized buildings. That means that as buildings increase in value after they are restored, the economic benefits go back to Main Street, not the developer’s pocket and not Wall Street.

Like the homeowner in the analogy, towns and villages — the people who live in them — are in charge of everything with the Pago USA model.

Pago prioritizes people, not just a project

Pago USA partners with communities to help them build thriving downtowns with a bold vision. Pago provides guidance while community organizations and downtown trusts are ultimately responsible for making decisions regarding everything from building finishes and materials to rental rates and tenant leasing.

Pago USA uniquely empowers the people who live and work in their town to make decisions that impact them the most. We prioritize their quality of life and the value of the location’s legacy over profit.