Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO) announced September 29 the winners of The Community Initiative Awards. These awards recognize historic preservation efforts that are building on traditional strategies and developing innovative tactics to build stronger communities with a preservation ethic.
Inspired by this year’s 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, the PA SHPO is not only looking back at past successes, but also focusing on the future. This effort presents the opportunity to promote new ideas that will influence the next phase of the preservation movement.
This year’s award winners include:
Bradford Revitalization Team (Bradford, McKean County)
This team includes Bradford’s Office of Economic & Community Development, the Downtown Bradford Revitalization Corporation, the Main Street Program and McKean County’s Economic Development office. Bradford has become a model Certified Local Government and Main Street/Elm Street practitioner. The team clearly understands that preserving historic resources is integral to the city’s economic and community development future. Their collaborative commitment to using the traditional tools within the preservation toolbox has created a community ready to integrate new ideas and approaches, build new partnerships and move into the next phase of preservation.
East Liberty Development Inc. (Pittsburgh, Allegheny County)
Photo courtesy of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission/Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office.
East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI) spearheaded the rapid revitalization of one of the most economically challenged and urban-renewal damaged neighborhoods in the city. The organization recognized from the beginning that a successful recovery needed to include a preservation-based design ethic. It’s not perfect, but there is now a vibrant mix of preservation and new construction in the neighborhood. ELDI is not a traditional preservation advocacy organization, but it has used traditional tactics (National Register districts, tax credits) while developing new ones, including using PA’s Blighted and Abandoned Property Conservatorship law to provide a future for Saints Peter and Paul Church and Rectory.
A link to the feasibility study can be found on ELDI’s website.
Hidden City Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Philadelphia County)
An online publication (and tour organizer) that shares no-holds-barred stories focused on raising awareness of good architecture, planning issues and urban trends in Philadelphia. Hidden City’s mission is to pull back the curtain on the city’s most remarkable places and connect them to new people, functions and resources. While the publication promotes the current and future needs of the city’s many communities, it has also formed a community of its own, with regular columnists and guest contributors from a cross-section of the city, and a community of people who share similar vision and goals.
The Community Initiative Awards will be presented at the 2016 Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Awards hosted by Preservation PA on Friday, October 14, 11:30 AM to 2:30 PM at The Yorktowne Hotel, 48 E. Market Street, York.
Under the direction the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the PA SHPO coordinates state and federal historic and preservation programs including the National Register of Historic Places, state and federal tax credits and review of state and federal projects for their impact on historic resources.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission is the official history agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Visit PHMC online at www.phmc.pa.gov.
