|
| Rep. Deborah Ross Named Among Top 2009 Preservation Award Winners |
Introduction of legislation that provides tax incentives for renovation of mills, tobacco warehouses and other vacant industrial buildings helped earn State Rep. Deborah Ross the 2009 Ruth Coltrane Cannon Award for outstanding statewide achievement on behalf of historic preservation. The North Carolina Mill Rehabilitation Tax Credits program is considered a major economic development initiative that creates incentives for reusing textile, tobacco and furniture plants — many of which have been shuttered during the past decade. “The Mills Bill, as the legislation is now known, is expected to generate $270 million in historic rehabilitation in its first five years,” said Preservation NC President Myrick Howard. Howard also praised Ross’s work on Raleigh’s Blount Street initiative, which saved several threatened historic properties downtown; improvements to the North Carolina Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program, which has led to 14,100 permanent new jobs across the state, and other efforts. “From her very first term in the General Assembly, Deborah Ross has been the strategist, leader, voice and advocate for historic preservation issues,” Howard said in giving the award to Ross Oct. 30 at PNC’s annual conference in New Bern. “Her impact has already been felt in communities across the state — and she’s still under 50.” Other 2009 award winners included the re-developer of an idle cotton mill, restorers of an art-deco fire department building, and a young Durham couple who turned a former “ladies home” into an upscale bed-and-breakfast. And while historic preservationists are not big fans of moving historic structures — due to the loss of historical context and the risk of serious structural damage — three of Preservation NC’s 2009 awards went to people or projects involved with such endeavors. “Occasionally, relocating an important historic structure is the only way to avoid its destruction,” noted Andrew Stewart, a PNC board member who presented the L. Vincent Lowe Jr. Business Award to Blake Moving Co. of Greensboro. Business owner Mike Blake earned the Lowe award in part for his sensitive approach to the relocation of historic Midway Plantation in Knightdale. Moved in 2005, the process was captured on film in the documentary “Moving Midway.” Other important properties preserved with the help of Blake Moving Co. were the Chancellors House at UNCG, and All Saints Chapel, a historic Raleigh structure that earned a 2009 Carraway Award. Learn more about all the 2009 Preservation Award Winners!
|
|
||||||
|
 |
