Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Awards 2008
The Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission, the Minneapolis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and Preserve Minneapolis are pleased to present the winners of the 2008 Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Awards. The winners were chosen by a eight-member panel comprised of three members of the Minneapolis HPC, three members of the Minneapolis Chapter of the AIA, and two board members of Preserve Minneapolis.

The winners were honored at a ceremony that was held on May 22nd, 2008 at the historic International Market Square.

Each week, one of the the winners will be highlighted on this page. All photos are courtesy of the award winners.

Historic Restoration or Rehabilitation Award
St. Anthony Office Building (Pillsbury Library)
100 University Avenue SE

Adaptive Reuse Award
Ripley Gardens
300 Queen Avenue North

New Addition to an Historic Building Award
Queen Anne Residence
Kenwood Neighborhood

Grace University Lutheran Church
324 Harvard Street Southeast

Neighborhood Preservation Award
1101 West Broadway

Community Education & Advocacy Award
Twin Cities by Trolley: The Streetcar Era in Minneapolis and St. Paul
By John Diers and Aaron Isaacs

Good Luck and Godspeed Award
Howe School Reuse Task Force
3733 Forty-third Avenue South

Recent Past Award
Diamond Lake Residence
Diamond Lake Neighborhood

The Steve Murray Award
Charlene Roise

Historic Restoration or Rehabilitation Award
Projects for nomination are those where an existing place, property, building, or landscape was returned to its original character in a manner that is respectful to the property’s historic past. Projects in this category were judged based on the careful attention to the quality of design, architecture, workmanship, and materials as well as the impact of the project on the surrounding neighborhood and community.

St. Anthony Falls Office Bldg (Pillsbury Library)
100 University Avenue SE
Located in the St. Anthony Falls Historic District, the St. Anthony Falls Office Building involves the restoration of the former Pillsbury Library, a unique example of the Beaux-Arts architectural style. The building served as public library until 1967 and was used for a variety of community and retail services. The restoration by Domain Architecture makes way for new office space and included new windows, masonry cleaning, balustrade replacement, a rear ADA-compliant building addition and interior restoration.

Adaptive Reuse
Projects for nomination are those where an existing historic place, property, building, or landscape was transformed and reinvented to incorporate both new and old elements in a way that that is respectful of, but different from, the form of the past. Projects in this category will be judged based on the careful attention to the quality of design, architecture, workmanship, and materials as well as the impact of the project on the surrounding neighborhood and community.

Ripley Gardens
300 Queen Avenue North
Ripley Gardens, the former Maternity Hospital listed on both the local and National Register of Historic Places, is significant for its association with Dr. Martha Ripley, one of the first female doctors in nation, as well as her pioneering work with low-income woman and obstetrics. The project combines the preservation and rehabilitation of three existing historic buildings and new construction three new buildings. Aeon Homes, and partners, have created a community of affordable rental and owner-occupied homes that respects the historic site while contributing to revitalization of the property and neighborhood.

New Addition to an Historic Building
Projects for nomination are those where an addition was made to an existing place, property, building, or landscape in a manner that is respectful to the property’s historic past. Projects in this category will be judged based on the careful attention to the quality of design, architecture, workmanship, and materials as well as the impact of the project on the surrounding neighborhood and community.

Queen Anne Residence
Kenwood neighborhood
Preservation happens city-wide, not just in historic districts, and in a time when homeowners all too often tear down the community’s historic assets, it’s reassuring to see an example of thoughtful re-use and adaptation. As well as restoring this 1892 Queen Anne, designed by Harry Wild Jones, a rear two-story addition was added to the home. The seamlessness of the addition, designed by David Heide Studios, respects the home’s architectural integrity while providing the space and amenities that allow it to remain relevant and vital – this thoughtful evolution allows the home to stand for generations to come.

New Addition to an Historic Building
Projects for nomination are those where an addition was made to an existing place, property, building, or landscape in a manner that is respectful to the property’s historic past. Projects in this category will be judged based on the careful attention to the quality of design, architecture, workmanship, and materials as well as the impact of the project on the surrounding neighborhood and community.

Grace University Lutheran Church
324 Harvard Street Southeast
On the National Register of Historic Places, the Grace University Lutheran addition maintains the character of the historic Gothic Revival church, while accommodating the needs of a growing congregation and dealing with limited space due to the surrounding University of Minnesota health care campus. Seven years after the project was envisioned by the congregation, construction began, and was competed in 2006, with the design assistance of Miller Dunwiddie Architects. The work included renovation of the existing nursery and community hall; upgrading the HVAC systems; and building new office, kitchen, and classroom spaces. The addition also added a new accessible entry, ramp, and elevator that connect all levels of the building.

Neighborhood Preservation
This award is granted for the effective inclusion of preservation that supports neighborhood-based plans, a neighborhood’s use of funds to reinvest in commercial/residential properties, or a neighborhood’s commitment to offer programs and projects that maintain and enhance neighborhood character. Projects in this category will be judged by the level to which plans, funding, or programs support a preservation strategy in the neighborhood and the implementation of those projects carried out by the neighborhood and partners.

1101 West Broadway

Located at the corner of West Broadway and Emerson Avenue North, this two-story commercial building had sat vacant for many years and was under ownership by the City of Minneapolis. The Ackerberg Group undertook the rehabilitation, which restored the exterior and interior as well as a rear building addition. The restoration of the building returns this vital corner back to the community through the City-County Federal Credit Union, the Bean Scene (a ground floor coffee shop), and Emerge Community Development offices on the second floor. The preservation of this building is an example of the hard work of the private and public sectors working to improve West Broadway and North Minneapolis.

Bardwell-Ferrant House
Twenty-fifth Street East & Portland Avenue South
In 1985, the Bardwell-Ferrant House, an unusual mix of Victorian and Moorish styles, sat vacant and decaying. Its location in a troubled neighborhood made it victim to looting for building parts and stained glass. Condemnation orders were posted and demolition seemed imminent.

The Bardwell-Ferrant House was constructed ca. 1883 for Charles Bardwell. In 1890, Emil Ferrant engaged local, Norwegian-immigrant architect Carl F. Struck to create the Moorish design theme with onion-domed towers, ogee arch shapes and deep-toned stained glass windows.

The house’s rescue came slowly. Mary Lou Maxwell and Jean Stewart had eyed the house for some time, but had had trouble buying it. Once secured, Maxwell and Stewart hired architect Rolf Lokensgard, who drafted rehabilitation plans that included converting the structure into four apartment units with revived and embellished original architectural elements. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Bardwell-Ferrant enjoyed a long period of success with Maxwell and Stewarts’ ownership, but sometime after they sold the house, one of the successive buyers deferred maintenance. Lately, some maintenance has occurred, including repainting. The building still maintains its architectural integrity, but is in danger of “lost” property. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Butler Square
518 First Avenue North
Butler Brothers Building has served two distinct purposes since its construction in 1906, first as headquarters for one of the world’s largest wholesalers and since 1974 as an office and retail complex. A two-phase reuse development was completed in 1979. Restorations were undertaken by developer Charles Coyer with Knutson Construction Services and James Binger with McGough Construction. Today massive support timbers have been cleaned and left in place with sky-lighted courts breaking up the massive interior space. Harry Wild Jones, the original architect, has numerous Minnesota landmarks to his credit including the Washburn Park Water Tower (Minneapolis) and Faribault City Hall (Faribault). Miller, Hanson and Westerbeck, and Arvid Elness Architects, both of Minneapolis, were architects for the restoration. (text: Bonnie McDonald, Preservation Alliance of Minnesota)
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Grain Belt Brewhouse
1220 Marshall Street Northeast
From the time it was constructed in 1891, until the present day, the Grain Belt Brewhouse has been a treasured landmark for northeast Minneapolis, providing an awe-inspiring connection to the city's industrial past along the Mississippi riverfront. Its restoration took the concerted effort of private and public entities, including the Ryan Companies, RSP Architects, the Minneapolis Community Development Corporation, and the unyielding commitment of the community. Preserving the remarkable features of this structure, which had stood empty for 26 years, while converting it to contemporary use posed formidable challenges that were overcome in this nationally recognized preservation effort. (text: Bonnie McDonald, Preservation Alliance of Minnesota)
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Hinkle Murphy Mansion
Tenth Street South at Park Avenue
This long-neglected Georgian Revival structure, designed by William Channing Whitney and built circa 1895, suffered two fires set by vagrants in the 1980s. A pair of nearby property owners saw economic opportunity in the National Register-designated site, and rehabilitated the building in the early 1990s. What began as a business venture for their company’s offices gradually became a preservation mission. The rehabilitation effort was assisted by Neighborhood Revitalization Program funds. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Minnesota Opera Company
620 First Street North
In 1979, a devastating fire engulfed one of several brick warehouse buildings lining one of Minneapolis’s most historic industrial streets. Minneapolis city officials stabilized the only part of the building that remained, the facade. The Minnesota Opera Company developed an ingenious plan to reuse the building shell, as well as two neighboring buildings for the company’s headquarters. The project began in 1990 and included a new building within the walls the destroyed warehouse. This was united with the other buildings to create large open spaces. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Ivy Tower
1115 Second Avenue South
As a downtown Minneapolis office building, Ivy Tower is an architectural anomaly – its pint-sized scale overshadowed by nearby skyscrapers and its pebbly exposed concrete surface wrapped in a vaguely ziggurat shape. Ivy Tower is also wrapped in an unusual history. The building was designed by Nebraska architect Thomas R. Kimball as part of a Second Church of Christ Scientist complex that would take up the entire block. The complex’s center would contain a large domed structure, surrounded by four slender minaret-like towers. The Ivy Tower, built in 1930, was the only part of the complex to be completed.

In the early 1980s, Ivy Tower’s marketability waned, as companies became lured to new skyscrapers in the tall and shiny office environment that enraptured downtown Minneapolis. By the end of the decade, Ivy Tower was mostly vacant and its owners were rumored to consider razing the building. In response, Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission initiated historic designation proceedings. Shortly after, the Minneapolis City Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee voted to affirm HPC’s recommendation, after listening to pro-designation testimony by several citizens, including a blind resident that lived near Ivy Tower.

At this time, Ivy Tower is being renovated into a hotel as part of a large-scale development of surrounding properties. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Milwaukee Avenue
Immediately south of Franklin Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Avenues South
For several decades following the inception of government-sponsored and financed urban renewal, the long-standing federal government practice of using the bulldozer for property clearance had become a principal redevelopment tool. However, the clear-cutting of urban neighborhoods came to a halt in the mid 1970s in Seward Neighborhood in South Minneapolis, when a well-organized neighborhood group used the political tools of the resurgent grass roots activism of that era, and thwarted the Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority’s plan to demolish neglected but piquant rows of century-old workers’ houses facing an unusually narrow street named Milwaukee Avenue. These houses, as well as many in the surrounding neighborhood, had become the first houses in America for Scandinavian and Northern European immigrants who formed this neighborhood in the 1880s and 1890s to be near their places of labor in the nearby railroad yards and factories.

The Seward West Project Area Committee (PAC) utilized the sharp pencils of staff-based urban design and planning resources as well as their well-honed political tactics to envision a four-block area redevelopment plan. The PAC saw the deteriorated single unit and duplex houses facing Milwaukee Avenue to be a potential National Register historic district, based on their immigrant history as well as the architectural continuity of Queen Anne-inspired vernacular brick houses lined on narrow lots along the street.

PAC worked with the Minnesota Historical Society to gain National Register designation for Milwaukee Avenue in 1974 (and later had to pressure a reluctant Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission to follow suit). PAC then worked with a now-agreeable housing authority to administer the overall redevelopment process including financing assistance for house rehab, developed historic preservation guidelines with the now-agreeable HPC, prepared drawings for contractors to follow, and designed a site plan to replace the narrow street with a pedestrian mall. A dozen houses that the PAC determined unsuitable for rehab were replaced by replica new construction,

Milwaukee Avenue has become a successful outcome in several respects. Historic preservation was no longer the exclusive province of the places of the well-privileged and renown members of society. Vernacular houses could be recognized as having architectural merit. And a neighborhood gained renewal in a much more appropriate manner. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Minnesota Opera Company
620 First Street North
In 1979, a devastating fire engulfed one of several brick warehouse buildings lining one of Minneapolis’s most historic industrial streets. Minneapolis city officials stabilized the only part of the building that remained, the facade. The Minnesota Opera Company developed an ingenious plan to reuse the building shell, as well as two neighboring buildings for the company’s headquarters. The project began in 1990 and included a new building within the walls the destroyed warehouse. This was united with the other buildings to create large open spaces. (text: Bob Roscoe)

Pratt School
66 Malcolm Avenue Southeast
The Sidney Pratt School is the oldest public school building in Minneapolis In 1998, as it celebrated its 100th birthday, the Victorian brick structure was renovated into a community center. Prior to that time, the school building was threatened with demolition. Strong community advocacy by citizens in the surrounding residential community in Prospect Park allowed Pratt to maintain its salubrious presence in the sloping topography of the neighborhood, as well as continue its close-by companionship to the famed Witch’s Tower. Neighborhood Revitalization Program funds contributed to the building renovation. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church
116 Thirty-second Street East
This rare example of a Prairie-style church, originally the Stewart Memorial Presbyterian Church, was designed by Minneapolis architects Purcell and Feick. The main auditorium was built in 1910 and a Sunday school wing was added a decade later. Declining membership and highway construction next to the church in the late 1960s dimmed its future. In 1988 the Baptist congregation bought it and in 1999 they began a restoration that has not only brought the unique building back to life, but also adapted it to their congregation’s needs. The result has been both an architectural masterwork and a new community focal point, helping spur the revitalization of the surrounding Lyndale neighborhood. (text: Bonnie McDonald, Preservation Alliance of Minnesota)
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State Theater
809 Hennepin Avenue
The State Theater was built in 1927, and its Renaissance Revival design contributed to Hennepin Avenue’s “Great White Way” formed by many other theaters, most no longer standing, in the immediate area. In 1985, a development proposal intended to “clean up the blight” on the block razing the State Theater and the former YMCA. A report commissioned by the Minneapolis Community Development Agency found the theater had insufficient economic value. Accordingly, the Minneapolis City Council voted 8-5 to deny historic designation, which was tantamount to approving demolition. An energetic coalition of preservationists attracted the strong support of the Minnesota Historical Society and the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, and induced Mayor Don Fraser to veto the council’s action. The council than reversed its decision and the building was saved.

Perhaps more important than the single historic resource rescue, the restored State Theater became the catalyst for the Hennepin Theater District. The district includes the restored Orpheum and Pantages Theaters, with more potential in the offing. Ironically, this misnamed blight spearheaded the revitalization of Hennepin Avenue. (text: Bob Roscoe)
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Stone Arch Bridge
crossing the Mississippi River over the Falls of Saint Anthony
Completed in 1883 for James J. Hill’s St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway, the bridge connected Hill’s system to the city’s Union Depot. The bridge cost $650,000 to build. On the advice of chief engineer, Charles Smith, its design and location replaced an earlier plan that would have created a shorter and cheaper structure directly above St. Anthony Falls. During the construction of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock in 1963, the Stone Arch Bridge was modified to replace two arches with a 200-foot long truss spanning the navigation channel. Constructed of limestone and St. Cloud granite the bridge’s railroad use ceased in 1965. In 1994 a partnership of public agencies raised $2.8 million to restore the bridge and prepare it for recreational use as a pedestrian walkway and biking path. In 2005 lighting designed by Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd., was added to enhance the evening appearance of this landmark. The bridge is one of three National Historic Engineering Landmarks in Minnesota, signifying its noteworthy physical structure and important role in the growth of Minneapolis. (text: Bonnie McDonald, Preservation Alliance of Minnesota)
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Washburn "A" Mill Complex
Second Street South at Portland Avenue South
Built in 1878, the Washburn Crosby “A” Mill housed a thriving milling business until the Great Depression. The building sat vacant along the Minneapolis riverfront for six decades until it was nearly destroyed by fire in 1991. Today it stands as a remarkable adaptive reuse housing the Mill City Museum providing hands-on experiences and an interpretive center focused on the city’s milling and lumber industries. The architectural firm of Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle Ltd. designed the project for the Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Center and is an office tenant in the complex. Today the neighborhood surrounding the Mill is a burgeoning center for the arts and residential development. (text: Bonnie McDonald, Preservation Alliance of Minnesota)
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