Scientific Properties is a Durham-based real estate development firm that specializes in inner-city revitalization, historic preservation, and historic adaptive use and mixed-use projects. Founded in 2000 when New York physician Andy Rothschild and his wife, Barbara, a native of the Triangle, moved to Durham, the firm combined his interests in urban design and real estate development.

Scientific Properties began with the adaptive use of a 1932 automotive garage in downtown Durham. Today, the former Clark and Sorrell garage houses the Triangle Biotechnology Center, providing lab and research space for life sciences companies. Several other projects followed, including a renovation at 401 Foster Street, providing affordable studio space to artists, and Venable Square, a former tobacco warehouse transformed into office, lab and retail space. All of these projects have made use of the historic rehabilitation tax credits.

Scientific Properties' latest and most ambitious project, the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co. in Durham, dates to 1900, when it opened as a textile factory that pressed cotton into thread and produced pouches for Bull Durham tobacco. Production ceased in 1996. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Golden Belt includes seven acres with six architecturally significant buildings. It's truly a beautiful complex.

Scientific Properties has converted the Golden Belt campus into 37 live/work lofts, 35 work-only artist studios, a main gallery, a live music venue, outdoor festival space, boutique retail stores, cafes, restaurants, and office units. The Golden Belt project has earned LEED certification for its use of green design and building materials.

Cultivating a creative, arts-based atmosphere is a major emphasis for Scientific Properties with the Golden Belt project. Artists and entrepreneurs will find an innovative environment to foster their talents as they work among exposed brick facades, oversized arched windows, skylights, original heart-pine beams, and soaring ceilings. Artists from the area and from as far away as Brooklyn and San Francisco have been inspired by the Golden Belt development.

Scientific Properties has helped create significant revitalization momentum in downtown Durham through its restored and adaptive use of several properties, including the historic Golden Belt property. Because of their vision, creativity, commitment to community-building and success, Andy Rothschild and his team at Scientific Properties are most deserving of the 2008 L. Vincent Lowe Jr. Business Award.