Mirvish cemented his status as cultural hero by becoming a theatre impresario, refurbishing the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1963 (another supposedly unviable building slated for the wrecking ball) and the Old Vic in London, which went on to enjoy a golden age, and for which Mirvish was awarded a CBE.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England wanted the government to scale back the programme to one or two showcase towns, arguing that officials should concentrate on refurbishing existing properties and redeveloping derelict brownfield sites as well as bring 800,000 empty homes in England back to use.
Similarly, fares on the L are rising, which should help cover the costs of refurbishing decrepit stations.
Since 2009 Qalaa Holdings, an Egyptian firm, has invested $234m in refurbishing railways in Kenya and Uganda after their governments granted a 25-year concession to run the railways.
The American embassy has paid for refurbishing a ward, so has the Lebanese community in Kinshasa.One thousand miles (1,600 km) away in Lubumbashi, Tom also expresses support for the rebels and a determination to stay in the country.
But even as he was making these cuts, he hired some expensive new designers from America and ordered them to produce no fewer than 22 new models before the end of 2002.Jürgen Bartels, a German hotelier who took over the Méridien hotel chain in 2000, spent $1.2 billion refurbishing his properties in 2001, at a time when they were sitting half-empty anyway, so he did not have to turn customers away.
That might mean accepting shorter lease lengths, with a view to refurbishing a building on expiry and then increasing rents.
Mr Mubarak remains in prison only because one dogged government whistle-blower, since demoted, kept receipts revealing the diversion of some $20m of tax money into refurbishing private presidential residences.
It also surfaced that Merrill accelerated some $4 billion in bonuses to staff before the completion of the government-backed takeover.Meanwhile, Mr Thain admitted that spending $1.2m on refurbishing his office last year was "a mistake in the light of the world we live in today".
After years of hand-wringing about being cut off from space without the material to make an RTG, a deal was reached in 2013 for NASA to pay the Department of Energy to resume production.Work has begun refurbishing some elderly production kit.
The Portuguese did better, building or completely refurbishing ten football stadiums in plenty of time for the tournament.
