AMBER UNION
Historic tax credits help convert office headquarters into housing


LOCATION
CLIENT
CONSTRUCTED
PROJECT DATE
PROJECT SCOPE
HOUSING CREATED
PROJECT SIZE
Falcon Heights, MN
Buhl Investors
1947, 1957
2018-current
Historic Tax Credit Certification, National Register of Historic Places Nomination, Design Guidelines
125 units
170,800 sq. ft.
A Moderne office building gets a new life as multi-family housing.
CHALLENGE
Located in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights, this Moderne office building and laboratory formerly served as the headquarters for the Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association, an important Midwest farmers’ cooperative. By 2018, the site represented an opportunity for repositioning and multi-family housing reuse. To access historic tax credits, the project needed a design that would both meet National Park Service standards and resolve complex abatement issues and unique mechanical system updates.
SUCCESS
New History navigated the historic tax credit application process, including a successful nomination of the building to the National Register of Historic Places, and helped to integrate historic preservation approvals into the project schedule. Through creative problem-solving, New History worked with the project team to develop solutions to difficult design and construction challenges, helping clear the path to the reuse of this historic building.