A former Philadelphia power station. A longtime, single-room-occupancy hotel in Chicago. An empty school in Memphis, Tennessee.
All of these properties, having been transformed into something new, were among the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2025 award winners.
Each of the projects received the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award on Tuesday — the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s top honor — during a conference in Milwaukee.
The nonprofit organization, chartered by Congress in 1949, is dedicated to preserving and enhancing historic places.
"Preservation is a creative force,” said Carol Quillen, president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in a statement announcing the award winners. “Historic places hold shared memories that can bring us together. By saving and thoughtfully adapting them for new uses, we can strengthen community engagement, nurture local culture, promote economic opportunity, and reduce waste.
“The winners of this year’s National Preservation Awards have each demonstrated the creative potential of historic preservation to serve the public good.”
Projects that won the Driehaus award include The Battery, the conversion of Philadelphia Electric Co.’s 100-plus-year-old Beaux-Arts Delaware Station structure into 124 apartments, the 64-room Switch House hotel, offices and event spaces.
That project at 1325 N. Beach St. along the Delaware River was led by Dean Adler of Philadelphia-based real estate investment firm Lubert-Adler.
Another winner was the Lawson House, the 24-story former YMCA building along Chicago’s River North and Gold Coast neighborhoods that Holsten Real Estate Development converted into 409 below-market-rate apartments.
The $128 million project preserved affordable housing in the high-rent area just north of the Loop business district. The 94-year-old Art Deco structure at 30 W. Chicago Ave. is across the street from the new, 77-story One Chicago residential tower that is No. 7 on the city’s list of tallest skyscrapers at 971 feet tall.
The other Driehaus winner was the conversion of the historic Melrose School building in Memphis into the Orange Mound Library & Genealogy Center.
The three-story brick building at 843 Dallas St. had sat vacant for nearly 40 years before the $16 million, city of Memphis-led project created a public library, 17 senior apartments and a genealogy center connecting residents to their heritage in Orange Mound. That was the first subdivision in the country "built by African Americans for African Americans," according to the statement.
In other awards, Althemese Pemberton Barnes of Tallahassee, Florida, received the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award for her “decades-long work to protect and elevate African American cultural heritage in Florida and beyond,” according to the statement.
The Zoar Village National Historic Landmark Levee Project in Ohio received a National Trust/Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Award for Federal Partnerships in Historic Preservation honors for a $14 million repair and preservation of a levee built in 1930.
The Louisiana Trust for Historic Preservation received the Trustees’ Award for Organizational Excellence for its work to preserve historic resources across all 64 of the state’s parishes during its 46 years of work.
The O’Connor House, the historic adobe home of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in Tempe, Arizona, received the Trustees’ Emeritus Award for Historic Site Stewardship after it was relocated brick by brick to avoid demolition. Today, the home is used for civic engagement and events.
Marsh Davis, CEO of Indiana Landmarks, received the John H. Chafee Trustees’ Award for Excellence in Public Policy. Under his leadership, Indiana Landmarks grew into the largest statewide preservation organization in the country, according to the statement.