Grain Belt Brewhouse Wins National Preservation Honor Award

The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently announced that the Grain Belt Brewhouse Renovation (Minneapolis, MN), designed by RSP Architects, was one of 16 projects selected from a field of 130 nominations nationwide to receive a 2005 National Preservation Honor Award.

In addition to RSP, project team members recognized during the National Trust’s awards event included:  Ryan Companies, the firm that owns the Brewhouse and served as developer and general contractor for the renovation; Hess Roise, the historical consultant; and the Community Planning and Economic Development Department (CPED) of the City of Minneapolis, which not only owned the Grain Belt Brewing Complex and completed critical remedial work prior to selling the Brewhouse property to Ryan in 2000, but also provided a significant portion of the funding necessary to make the renovation feasible.

Since the National Trust’s awards program was launched in 1971, juries have selected a total of eight Honor Award winners from Minnesota. Of these eight only three awards, including the one presented for the Brewhouse Renovation, have recognized building projects.

The National Preservation Honor Awards “recognize the efforts of individuals, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and corporations [who] give new meaning to their communities through preservation.” Thus to win an Honor Award, RSP and its project partners had to address more than beauty and functionality; they had to demonstrate the positive economic and cultural impact of the Brewhouse Renovation by illustrating how a cross-sector collaboration successfully returned a historic landmark to its role as a vital community asset.

In addition to creating the renovation design, RSP is the major tenant in the Brewhouse. In March 2002, the firm moved approximately 200 architects, interior designers, facility experts and related staff from the three buildings it had occupied in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District to the renovated Brewhouse, a monumental structure that had stood vacant along the Mississippi Riverfront for more than a quarter of a century.