Adaptive Reuse of Heritage Buildings in As-Salt, Jordan: A Comparative MCDM Study

Adaptive reuse helps bridge conservation needs and current demands on heritage buildings; however, current decision-making prioritization processes in historic cities are often disjointed across stakeholders and disciplines. This research assesses five case studies of empty/building underused heritage sites for adaptive reuse (Al-Khatib, Al-Saket, Al-Azab, Al-Sukkar, and Al-Muasher B) located in As-Salt historic center—a UNESCO-listed historic nucleus in Jordan—using a convergent mixed-methods multi-criteria decision-making framework. Sources triangulated include 810 resident/tourist questionnaires, 29 semi-structured interviews, architectural/spatial documentation, and AI-generated visualization, which acted as a communication tool with stakeholders. Ten operational criteria were evaluated, and 15 institutional and conservation experts completed Best–Worst Method (BWM) comparisons, producing 255 substantive judgments. Geometric-mean aggregation and linear minimax optimization assigned the greatest weight to heritage, cultural, and symbolic significance (0.2816), followed by structural and architectural integrity (0.1689) and regulatory and governance readiness (0.1126). The BWM solution was highly consistent (xi* = 0.0563; CR = 0.0126). TOPSIS ranked Al-Khatib first (CC = 0.6821), followed by Al-Sukkar (0.6386), Al-Muasher B (0.5339), Al-Saket (0.4516), and Al-Azab (0.1540). Al-Khatib remained first in 39 of 40 one-at-a-time weight-perturbation scenarios; Al-Sukkar moved to first only when the structural-integrity weight increased by 20%. The findings show that heritage significance alone does not determine reuse readiness; structural condition, governance, ownership, community support, spatial suitability, and investment capacity jointly shape project priority.