You read about it first in the E-FORUM four months ago (More On Ford Assembly Building Award, June 23, 2008), and now the award has been officially bestowed. Note all the Richmonders sharing the spotlight as co-nominees: Bay City Mechanical, Ellen L. Gailing Photography, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and former mayor Rosemary Corbin.

Richmond's Ford building earns national award

By Chris Treadway
West County Times

Article Last Updated: 10/25/2008 09:01:46 PM PDT

The Ford Point Building in Richmond was named one of 21 national award winners last week by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The quarter-mile-long building, once an automobile assembly plant, has been adapted into modern uses that include housing green businesses and a large public gathering space known as the Craneway within its 500,000 square feet.

The former Ford Assembly Building opened in 1931 and produced thousands of military vehicles during World War II. It closed in 1956 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. But it was badly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and came close to demolition.

A rehabilitation project advanced four years ago by Orton Development Inc. and project architect Marcy Wong & Donn Logan Architects preserved the building's architectural highlights, restored other features and "greatly improved its environmental performance," according to the national trust.

The trust said that co-nominees honored as part of the Ford building's Honor Award are Orton Development, Marcy Wong & Donn Logan Architects, Preservation Architecture, SWA Group, The Crosby Group, Dalzell Corp., Morrow-Meadows Corp., Bay City Mechanical, Gregory P. Luth Associates, Xander Design, Billy Hustace Photography, Ellen L. Gailing Photography, Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, former mayor Rosemary Corbin and U.S. Rep. George Miller.

The winners of the National Preservation Awards will appear in the November/December issue of Preservation Magazine and online at www.PreservationNation.org/magazine.