A Moderne office building gets a new life as an award-winning multi-family housing project.

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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. The completed project has been nominated for several awards, including recognition by Finance & Commerce as a Top Project of 2022.