The Landmark Society’s 2014 Preservation Awards will be presented this year at a special event on Sunday, November 16 at 3:00 p.m. in Rochester’s historic City Hall, the spectacular Richardsonian Romanesque landmark located downtown at 30 Church Street. The Awards are given each year to individuals and organizations in our nine-county area who have made outstanding efforts in the preservation of their homes, historic properties, and landscapes. In anticipation of the upcoming Awards Ceremony we will be featuring some of this year’s award winners.

The Barber Conable Award recognizes a large-scale rehabilitation of an historic building in our region completed within the past two years. This includes buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places and projects utilizing the Federal Investment Tax Credit Program.

The Academy Building:
13 South Fitzhugh Street, City of Rochester

                                                                           Photo by Richard Margolis

This year’s recipient of our major preservation award is the Academy Building. Erected in 1873 as the city’s first public high school, this remarkable High Victorian Gothic building was designed by renowned Rochester architect Andrew Jackson Warner and is unique in the region. Its sophisticated features, polychrome building materials, and picturesque design are hallmarks of this distinctive style. Long the headquarters of the Rochester Board of Education and later rehabilitated into commercial offices in the late 1970s, this signature building has been vacant and seeking a new owner in recent years.

The challenging project returned the building to a new use as 21 loft-style apartments and retail space. Listed in the State and National Registers of Historic Places, the building was rehabilitated using the Federal Investment Tax Credit program and design review by the NYS Office of Historic Preservation. This $7,000,000 project was completed by owner and developer George Traikos, with project architect Blake Held and consulting services by Bero Architecture, PLLC.