South Street Landing has been awarded the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award. This award celebrates the best of the best in historic preservation and adaptive reuse, and South Street Landing is among three national award recipients this year.

Constructed in 1912 and ultimately decommissioned in 1995, this former electrical power plant sat empty for 17 years, and was listed on PPS’s Most Endangered Properties list in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, Boston-based developers, CV Properties, started working with three significant Rhode Island institutions, Brown University, Rhode Island College, and the University of Rhode Island, to develop a shared vision for the future of the plant. Completed in 2017, with the help of federal, state, and local tax credits, the property was transformed into more than 305,000 square feet of adapted shared space. The renewed use of the structure has spurred additional investment, giving rise to an emerging innovation and design district that has supported the economic revival of the surrounding waterfront area. 

When contacted by PPS, Richard Galvin, President and CEO of CV Properties, said they were “thrilled to have been the stewards of this project, which required a monumental, collective effort from many stakeholders. We are especially grateful to leadership at Brown, the City of Providence, the State of Rhode Island, URI and RIC for helping us make it happen. Our design team led by Tsoi Kobus, with construction by Gilbane, and our partners from Wexford Science and Technology made the project a reality.”

The award will be presented during a ceremony at the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference, PastForward, in Denver on Friday, October 11 at 5:30 p.m. MT. The program will be livestreamed for free. Learn more at savingplaces.org/awards.