The Flat Iron Building with Smith Haughey’s entrance at the left.
by Cynthia Price
from Michigan Historic Preservation Network reports
The Michigan Historic Preservation Network (MHPN) has announced its 2012 Historic Preservation Awards winners.
The awards ceremony was one of the highlights of the 32nd Annual MHPN Conference, “Model Change-Over: A New Era for Historic Preservation in Michigan,” and was held May 11 at the Durant Hotel in Flint.
The MHPN presented seven Building Awards for projects completed within the last three years. Winning projects could be a restoration or rehabilitation, and must include exterior work, but may also include interior work. While many think of preservation as the multi-million dollar restoration of large historic landmarks, preservation is not limited by size, location or cost.
This year’s winners include the Flat Iron Building in downtown Grand Rapids, in which law firm Smith Haughey Rice and Roegge is a major tenant. (See Grand Rapids Legal News, Dec. 7, 2011.)
Three of Grand Rapids’ oldest buildings, dating from the Civil War era, were rehabilitated to provide office and retail space. The buildings are now fully occupied for the first time in over 60 years.
The other six winners of the Building Award are: 1945 Standard Oil Gas Station, Detroit (a World-War II era Art Moderne gas station renovated to be a pharmacy); 5716 Wellness, Detroit, rehabilitation of a 1910 building which is the only known remaining wood-beam building designed by Albert Kahn; Almont Historical Museum, village of Almont; The Armory in Lansing, originally built in 1924 and how housing non-profit organizations while preserving its military character; Newberry Hall, Detroit, now serving as market-rate housing in the thriving Midtown section of Detroit; and Accident Fund Holdings, Inc. National Headquarters, Lansing — where the adaptive reuse of an Art Deco power station to Class A office space kept a major employer downtown.
Two Grand Rapids projects also won Preservation Gem Awards, presented to outstanding preservation projects that include restoration or rehabilitation of an element of a building, or of a structure or an object. The Basilica of St. Adalbert Domes Restoration, Grand Rapids. The copper domes of St. Adalbert’s, the only basilica in Michigan, were carefully removed from their bases, restored with hand-crafted materials, and removed to their prominent place on the skyline of Grand Rapids. St. Mary’s Catholic Church Steeple Restoration involved painstaking restoration of the slate-clad bell tower steeple of St. Mary’s with the original carefully documented pattern and colors.
Lifetime Achievement awards went to Thomas Fitzpatrick, Ann Arbor. Deborah Goldstein, Bloomfield Hills, and David White of Flint.
More information is at www.mhpn.org
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