 Hello everyone good evening and welcome to the opening plenary session of Pass Forward the 2018 National Preservation Conference. As chair of the National Trust Board of Trustees and a proud Californian I'm delighted to welcome you all here this evening for what promises to be I think a very exciting and enriching few days. It's a rough time in California I have to say though the fires in the north and those near my home in Southern California have been truly devastating and I want to acknowledge the many lives that have been lost in the last few weeks here it's incredibly sad and in fact I just read today that in the hills above Malibu an adobe of the Sepulveda family from 1868 burned to the ground so we're losing historic resources as well. It's a great blow to the Golden State but on a happier note welcome to San Francisco a great town. I attended my first National Trust annual conference in San Francisco in 1991 27 years ago and it was my introduction to the National Trust and I have to say the meeting was kind of bewildering and I was trying to figure out what to do and who to see and what sessions to go to and I think in the meantime I figured it out very happily but the one thing I haven't figured out is the ribbon thing on the badges and maybe someone here maybe someone here can explain it to me later tonight but welcome to San Francisco this is unique and a world class city located in this splendidly beautiful natural setting where the past and the future are in constant dialogue and sometimes intention. The America of tomorrow is being developed right here in the Bay Area as we work to preserve the best of our history and to ensure that our neighborhoods and communities remain affordable and inclusive to all. I'm excited about our week together and it's already off to a very good start I hope you had a chance this morning to hear the in-depth lives presentation with Victoria Herman. We'll continue to explore key topics for our future such as climate change and resiliency the culture nature connection and intangible cultural heritage. I think San Francisco perfectly lends itself to these themes. Through power sessions, learning labs, field studies, intensive training here there's so much to think about and do least of which is the chance to compare notes on our work from coast to coast with one another and explore the various opportunities and challenges facing historic preservation today and charting a path forward for the movement in 2019. In addition, there'll be plenty of time for collegial conversation where I think so much work really gets done and to party with friends and colleagues. I think it's going to be a valuable and enjoyable week together. Importantly, I would like to thank our principal partners this year American Express, the Richard H. Dreehouse Foundation and San Francisco Planning for all they've done to make past forward 2018 a great success. Their leadership, their partnership and generosity not only make this conference possible but advanced preservation in multiple ways across the United States and all of us at the National Trust are grateful to them. Before we get on with the show, I'm delighted to once again lead us in a past forward plenary tradition. Let's take a moment to get reacquainted and please get ready to stand. I first like to ask this year's diversity scholars to stand and then you'll remain standing throughout this little exercise here. So diversity scholars please stand. Now I invite all of our young leaders, everyone under 35 years of age to stand. Very good. And are there any first time attendees to pass forward? Please stand. And what about people joining us from outside of the United States? Please stand. And then finally our conference veterans, those of you who have been to more than 10 preservation conferences, please stand up. We should have most of the room by now. But that's terrific. Welcome everyone one and all. It's great to be here with you. Now is our custom. I will call to order the annual membership meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. As many of you know, this opening plenary of past forward also serves as our annual meeting of members with the sole order of business being the election of trustees to the Board of Trustees for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The National Trust Board is made up of remarkably talented and dedicated group of individuals, each of whom are volunteers. They not only serve the trust, but they serve their own organizations at home and also the preservation movement, Rich Large. The slate of trustees presented by the trusteeship and governance committee includes new and current trustees proposed for reelection after completing their first and second terms. Nominated to serve their first three year term are Damien Dwin of New York City, Shelly Hoon Keith of Milton, Massachusetts, and C.H. Randolph Lyon of Chicago. For a second three year term, Lester G. Phant of Washington D.C., Lisa C. of Los Angeles, and Phoebe Tudor of Houston. And for a third three year term are Larry Curtis of Boxford, Massachusetts, and Timothy P. Whalen of Los Angeles, California, whom I can vouch for. So I think you have found the detailed biographical information on each of these individuals has been shared with you online at savingplaces.org. And at this time, it gives me great pleasure to present the slate of nominees for election as trustees of the National Trust. I ask for your approval of the slate by acclamation as indicated by your applause. Thank you. Of course, even as we say hello to and renewing board members, there is a farewell that hangs over us this evening. This will be the last pass forward at which Stephanie Meeks will be present as our president and CEO. Stephanie our courageous leader will, as you know, step down from her role at the end of this calendar year. Stephanie has made a tremendous difference for the National Trust and for preservation over her eight years at the helm. When I think of a word to describe her as both a human and as a leader, I always settle on integrity. Stephanie has led the trust with intelligence, focus and above all integrity. The proof is in her record. She leaves behind not just a list of impressive accomplishments over the last eight years, but a preservation movement that is nimbler, more technologically proficient, more comfortable with important advocacy work, more people centered and on a stronger financial footing than when she came. She created the National Treasures Program, the diverse, revolving portfolio of threatened, nationally significant places that the trust works to protect. When Stephanie came to the trust, many of its historic sites were in need of critical maintenance that had been too long deferred. But under her leadership, the trust completed more than $20 million in capital projects at its historic sites, while simultaneously expanding their creative programming, their community relevance and the audiences they served. She's provided stalwart support to the two National Trust subsidiaries, the National Trust Community Investment Corporation, the NTCIC, and the National Main Street Center. Through the trust's reurbanism initiative, first rate and innovative empirical research is being conducted by the Trust Research and Policy Lab. Through this work, Stephanie has helped make preservation a more prominent tool in urban planning and encourage policies to foster protection, inclusion, and economic growth in historic urban neighborhoods across the country. She even wrote a book about it. In the wake of Charlottesville last summer, and the division it caused, she was determined to find a way for the trust to do right by her history and tell a more complete American story. The African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund was born. An initiative to highlight overlooked places that tell the stories of creativity, activism, and achievement, and that deserve the full benefit of our attention. In less than a year, Stephanie has raised more than $12 million for the Action Fund, demonstrating its relevancy and currency. The fund turns one year old tonight, and it has already been an extraordinary success in its reach. And she did all of this while fully modernizing the trust's technology infrastructure and overseeing its move to a new state-of-the-art headquarters in the historic Watergate complex in Washington. In some, Stephanie has made immeasurable contributions to our work. I know I speak for the entire Board of Trustees when I extend my admiration, respect, and gratitude to her for all she's done. I also know we're not alone in that front. Stephanie has touched so many lives over the past eight years with her leadership, her resourcefulness, her warmth, and compassion, and her integrity. While honoring her this week, many of us also wanted to create a more lasting tribute to Stephanie's hard work. And when friends heard she had decided to move on, they asked us about starting a fund in Stephanie's honor. To respond to this interest, we launched the Stephanie Meeks Preservation Fund. It has already received $150,000 in contributions from individuals and members of the Board of Trustees and the National Trust Council. And if you'd like to join us in honoring Stephanie in this way, please don't hesitate to contact any of us or the trust's gift officers or the development team. We'll hear from her later tonight, but please join me in giving her a well-deserved applause. Suffice it to say that Stephanie's parting leaves us with enormous shoes to fill. A search committee of the Board of Trustees, led by Trustee Jay Clemens of California, is very busy evaluating applicants and interviews will begin soon. There's a very strong group of professionals who expressed who have expressed serious interest in the President's job. And I look forward after the new year to be able to share more news about the search and the trust's ninth president and CEO. Now let me turn things over to our next speaker, Kim Coventry, who is the executive director of the Chicago-based Richard H. Dreehouse Foundation. For more than 25 years, the Dreehouse Foundation has been committed to preserving the built heritage. The Foundation benefits individuals and communities by supporting the preservation and enhancement of the built and natural environments through historic preservation in neighborhoods throughout Chicago. Encouragement of quality architectural landscape design and conservation of open space. The Foundation provides leadership and thinking that advances our field, and we're grateful for all they do. Established in 2012, the Richard H. Dreehouse Foundation National Preservation Awards is the most sought after award in preservation in the United States. It honors individuals, organizations, public agencies and corporations whose skill and determination have added to the richness of their communities by breathing new life into their architectural and cultural heritage. The awards recognize excellence and landmark preservation, historic restoration, craftsmanship and educational and advocacy campaigns. Here to present this year's awards is Kim Coventry, the executive director of the Richard H. Dreehouse Foundation. Good evening. Thank you, Tim. For your steady leadership, we're enormously grateful as a community. I bring greetings from Richard Dreehouse, who's just returned from Madrid where he presented the Manzano Award, which he established eight years ago to honor excellence in architecture, preservation and traditional building arts in Spain and Portugal, and he sends his very best to all of you. And while I bring greetings from Chicago, where we welcomed many of you to the National Trust Conference last year at this time, the truth is I hail from the Monterey Peninsula, California, just 90 miles south of San Francisco, and it's there that on September 11th of this year, the National Trust reopened the Cooper and Malera Adobe after, I believe, a $7 million intervention intended to make the property self-sustaining. This rebirth is a bold experiment undertaken in partnership with a commercial developer that holds promise for a new model for preservation, and I'm enormously proud that it's in my hometown. This year at the Dreehouse Foundation, we've spent a lot of time focusing on four main themes. One, the role that human perception might play in the historic preservation movement. In other words, how our brains respond to the built environment, how memory impacts our experience, the role that historic buildings play in the stories we tell, and what these things suggest for the future of historic preservation. Two, the need to recast and represent historic preservation not as a standalone discipline, but as part of an integrated codependent system of assets, built, natural, and cultural, that constitute place and endow certain places with meaning. Three, the need to put preservation on the national agenda by taking a hard look at, among other things, legal and binding policies as well as guidelines, the Venice Charter, which was adopted in 1964, and to ask ourselves if they remain relevant in today's world. And four, the need to develop a shared understanding of the goals of the preservation movement and to work toward a shared language that will facilitate dialogue and understanding with those working on the front lines in ecology, conservation, cultural heritage, land use, tourism and neuroscience. In other words, to find a way to speak with one another, and then with one consistent voice to those in power. This, I believe, is urgent and imperative. And then interestingly, this year, the European ministers of culture adopted new guidelines for what they refer to as the built culture. This document, which is called the Davos Declaration, is available online in many languages, and it's remarkable in its vision and the shared values that it expresses. It reads in part, and I quote, aware of a trend towards a loss of quality in both the built environment and open land spaces all over Europe, evident in the trivialization of construction, the lack of design values, including a lack of concern for sustainability, the growth of faceless urban sprawl in irresponsible land use, the deterioration of the historic fabric and the loss of regional traditions and identities. We urgently need a new adaptive approach to shaping our built environment, one that is rooted in culture, actively build social cohesion, ensures environmental sustainability, and contributes to health and well-being of us all, end quote. I believe that the way forward for historic preservation is to adopt a holistic approach, one in which we work in partnership with the many other disciplines involved in mediating the human experience in the built and natural environments. Humans love nature because we are nature, and yet we live in built environments. These opposing forces must be negotiated. Within the National Trust itself in 2018, it's a year of transition, and we at the Treehouse Foundation wish to thank Stephanie Meeks for more than eight years of service to the field, and I again would like to applaud Stephanie. Sadly, in September, we lost John Brian, a Chicagoan, and one of preservation's great champions and practitioners. Like Richard Treehouse, John Brian was a born preservationist who was introduced to the National Trust by Dick Moe. John, as you will recall, was the recipient of the National Trust's Louise DuPont Crown and Shield Award in 2014. He was my dear friend and mentor. His voice and vision are already deeply missed, but his commitment to the arts, preservation, equality, and civil rights have left an indelible impact on the world. Now to the Richard H. Treehouse Foundation National Preservation Awards. As Tim indicated, the awards are regarded as the pinnacle of achievement in historic preservation. As models of excellence, winning projects demonstrate the immediate and long-term benefits of historic preservation by engaging any number of preservation tools in the furtherance of a strong, just, and sustainable communities. They celebrate organizations, projects, and thought leaders that implement innovative and cutting-edge preservation approaches or technologies to save historic buildings and other cultural assets. Winners are selected by an independent jury of national and international thinkers from a range of disciplines. This year's jury includes a Pulitzer Prize-winning Architectural Historian, an educator, a national leader in using preservation as a revitalizing force in the African-American community, and a Rome Prize-winning conservator with international experience in preservation and material conservation. We thank them all for their service. Now, a short video will introduce the first award-winning project. Crosstown Concourse is a mixed use, living in art space, occupying the revitalized Sears-Robuck Distribution Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Following the 1927 construction of the 1.5 million-square-foot distribution center, Sears-Robuck immediately became a major economic engine in the city and was the region's largest employer by 1965. Unfortunately, due to decades of urban disinvestment and suburban expansion, the structure was abandoned in 1993. In 2010, a local startup arts organization conducted a study that assessed the feasibility of relocating the organization's headquarters to the building and facilitating a gradual revival. After hundreds of meetings with local civic leaders, institutions and neighbors, a group of founding partners came together to implement their vision for a vertical mixed-use village. The partners emphasized the importance of an environmentally conscious, community-driven development that would focus on social transformation and inclusivity. They set about establishing a collective space where health, arts, and educational organizations could thrive. This once-delapidated structure now holds 41 office and retail tenants, 265 apartment units, a charter high school, a YMCA, a performing arts theater, artist residency studios, and has brought more than 700 employees to the neighborhood. After its grand opening in August of 2017, Crosstown Concourse earned lead platinum status and achieved full occupancy in less than a year. Accepting the award for Crosstown Concourse is Tony Policiati, principal, Looney Rick's Kiss. Thank you. It's an honor, it's a true honor to be standing here tonight representing Crosstown Concourse, the adaptive reuse of a 1.5 million square foot 1927 vintage Sears Distribution Center. And just for context, 1.5 million square feet, that's something we had a hard time wrapping our heads around, 1.5 million square feet is 30,000 square feet larger than the Chrysler building in New York, simply laid on its side. Crosstown's a marvelous example of what can be achieved when we dream big, when we approach challenges as if there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. In its heyday, Sears Crosstown was the largest employer in the city of Memphis, an anchor to thriving community where four neighborhoods came together. As the affluent population base moved to the suburbs, Crosstown and the surrounding areas experienced steep decline. Many cities around the country have experienced that. Since going dark in 1993, numerous efforts of redevelopment failed. The massive structure spurred all types of studies, mixed use, subsidized housing, community jail, even scrap value studies. Fortunately, it cost too much to tear down. In 2010, a moonlighting art history professor, and let me let that settle in real quick, make sure everybody was listening, moonlighting, so he has a day job. This is what he did at night after family time and after he ran an arts organization, he decided to be developer. But he had a vision, a vision to use this structure to house his startup arts incubator. He imagined a slow organic redevelopment, 10, 15, 20 years, he'd be happy with 20 years. For a period of two years, he sought community partners. For two years, he was routinely laughed at and ridiculed. His common reference was people would look at him as if he had a third eye in the middle of his forehead, and he grew accustomed to that. Everyone knew this was an impossible dream. Undeterred, Todd, the art history professor, held community events and fundraisers in and around the building. You saw some of them in the video. He tapped the community's deep emotional connection to the building and the history it represents. By 2011, his vision evolved to a vertical urban village anchored by health, wellness, education, and the arts. All critical and complementary aspects of life. He found nine founding partners, community institutions, that understood and embraced his vision, his vision of community, and how the sum could be greater than the individual parts. What actually happened was much greater than anyone, including Todd, ever imagined. Less than one year after opening, Crosstown was fully occupied. That isn't the headline, though. The headline is how Crosstown inspired an optimism and a swagger throughout the city. The city realized that an individual, just like you and me, not a government, not royalty, not a well-heeled developer, not a corporation, an individual, had achieved the impossible. What's more, they realized that what was created was both by and for the people of the city. In fact, the development will be gifted to the founding partners once the tax credits roll off. How many people would invest that much effort to donate a 200 million dollar project to the community? Today hundreds of people live in market rate housing as well as subsidized housing, residency programs for teachers, medical students, children that are St. Jude cancer patients, artist housing, thousands more work in civic non-profit offices, medical providers, a high school radio station, teaching kitchen, grocery store, YMCA, philanthropic foundations, art studios, corporate headquarters. You get the idea, it's a well-rounded village. All of these are intentionally intermixed and curated so that people of different walks of life would see each other, interact with each other, and ultimately build community together, realizing we have more in common than we have differences. I invite you to Memphis to see this first hand. It's really the only way to experience crosstown. Thank you. The Page Woodson School was originally constructed in 1910 and functioned as an all-white elementary school until 1934 when it became Frederick Douglass High School, Oklahoma City's only African-American high school. It was notable for its faculty, alumni, and curricula and as an emblem of African-American progress in the civil rights era. After sitting vacant for 20 years and experiencing multiple fires and vandalism, the dilapidated structure was purchased by Page Woodson Development, LLC, in 2013. The school has since been reimagined as a residential and community space that includes 60 affordable housing units and a 700-seat auditorium for community meetings and performances. The restoration created a 100 percent affordable housing option and an auditorium that will be leased back to Oklahoma City's Community Development Corporation for $1 per year. The building's original art deco details, limestone accents, and various school themes have largely been restored and continue to draw people to the development. The project took advantage of a collaborative public-private partnership that included the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority and the National Park Service. Historic tax credits and extensive community outreach were also critical in the success of this development. Page Woodson School demonstrates how the preservation of an architecturally and historically significant structure can also address the urgent needs of a community. Accepting the award for Douglas at Page Woodson, Arjina Shofila, founder and owner, Shofila and associates, Amanda War, associate, Smith Dahlia Architects, and Marjorie Young, CEO, Oklahoma City Northeast. Thank you very much to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, to Mr. Dreehouse, the Selection Committee, and to all who supported this project. Page Woodson School has been given a second life. For over 20 years, the 1910 school building had still vacant. Vandalism, water had caused major damage and many many fires had been set It's really amazing, a miracle that the building is still standing. In 2005, Marjorie Young, Chief Operating Officer of the nonprofit Oklahoma City Northeast, Marjorie's here tonight. She became the champion for saving the school. I partnered with her to ensure its nomination to the National Register and to gain early support for redevelopment. Marjorie and I knew that this school was iconic. It was a true heart of African American history in Oklahoma City and that it was one of the most important structures to preserve. In 1934, the formerly all-white school became Frederick Douglas Junior and Senior High School during a period of de jure segregation. The auditorium featured concerts, graduations, meetings of national importance, and national artists. And while it was central to the King Eric Civil Rights Movement, the Douglas High tradition of excellence had been in place long before. This was its indelible mark on generations of African Americans in Oklahoma City. Douglas was a beacon that pointed to a better life. In 2014, Ron Bradshaw and his son Jason bought the school without a clear idea of what they wanted to do with it. Sadly, Ron is not here with us tonight, but he would be the first to say that there were many owners and he and Jason were just privileged to be the stewards of the process. They began working with Smith Dahlia Architects of Atlanta. Our project architect Amanda Ward is standing here tonight. They hired me as the project manager and the owner's rep and then for the next year we met with the African American community with the Douglas High School and Num Lion Association and with the Urban Renewal Authority to determine a way to repurpose the school that would foster the goals of the most participants. Today, Paige Woodson accommodates 60 affordable housing units, nonprofit offices, a large multi-purpose community space and a 750 seat beautifully preserved auditorium. It has a new companion building designed by Hans Butzer and his firm that provides another 68 affordable units. This restoration has sparked local development along with a new innovation district in our city. This type of restoration really has been a bridge where micro communities previously at odds with each other have now come together. We are seeing that with organizations from all over the city holding events at this venue. The Douglas is now a destination where visitors and residents can experience history in a living way and there's a palpable excitement that a cornerstone of African American history has been brought back. The success of Paige Woodson has also prompted the planned restorations of Marcus Garvey and Dunbar, both historic schools in our community. During our outreach events, Ron and I both witnessed former students crying when they recalled their time at Paige Woodson and at Douglas. The restoration has made people really happy and proud and finally it has established lasting bonds of goodwill among a diverse group of collaborators too many to mention here tonight. But I personally really can't leave this stage without thanking the Lord Jesus. He was the author and the finisher of this journey. He started it 14 years ago and was seen throughout every process with every answered prayer, divine connection, and the bringing together of a wonderful group of professionals, collaborators, and partners. And finally he's validating our work by allowing us to be recipients of your generosity. So thank you for honoring this work and the people behind it. Thank you for honoring Oklahoma City's African American community and our history. Thank you for honoring Oklahoma City. May this be one of many more projects that celebrate the African American contribution to the American story. God bless you. The transformation of the Richardson-Omstead campus has been a key factor in Buffalo's economic and cultural revival in recent years. The campus, originally built as the Buffalo State Asylum in 1872, was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson alongside the landscape team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vox. The asylum provided state-of-the-art care for people with mental illness. Over time however, patients were moved to a new facility as treatments changed and resources were diverted. The campus's 13 dilapidated buildings and 42 acres of grounds sat vacant for 40 years and were threatened with demolition on multiple occasions. Established in 2006, after years of strong community activism to save the campus, the Richardson Center Corporation is tasked with creating an economically sustainable plan for the property. In an exemplary demonstration of public-private partnership, the redevelopment plan was funded by New York State, federal and state historic tax credits and private philanthropy. Undertaking one of the largest historic preservation projects in the nation, the Richardson Center Corporation overcame immense challenges during redevelopment, the massive size of the buildings and vast grounds as well as their outdated design and variety of intended uses. The corporation was able to create a sustainable model for reusing the property by developing the campus as a series of projects rather than all at once. The first phase of redevelopment is complete and has yielded a hotel, a restaurant and an architecture center. Richardson Olmsted campus serves as a model of how large-scale architectural complexes can be saved through engaging the community, establishing strong partnerships and developing a creative approach to reuse. Accepting the award for the Richardson Olmsted campus are Mark Mortensen, executive director, Richardson Olmsted campus and former executive director Monica Pellegrino-Fakes. So much in Buffalo has changed since we hosted the National Trust Conference seven years ago. We could only hope and imagine that our project would be worthy of this award and it's just incredible to see that dream come true. During the conference some of you might have been there. We opened the doors for the first time in years and a thousand people visited. People stood out in the rain and the cold waiting to come inside and we heard people's stories. We heard from people who lived and worked at this former hospital, who admired it. We heard from a lot of people who broke into it and we also heard from people who wanted it saved and it was then that I realized this story is about people and community. It's the story of people like you that never gave up hope that a landmark had a new future. It's a story of hope and healing and of reuse and rebirth. Redevelopment of the Richardson Olmsted campus has been a dream come true for the city of Buffalo for over 40 years. We're fortunate in Buffalo to have a passionate preservation community. Amazing people who rallied time and time again to save this monumental structure from demolition and the community brainstorm creative reuse ideas for decades until we could make it happen together. Today this once dilapidated city block is a vibrant community hub. The landscape and a third of the buildings have been reused and currently house a hotel, event center, restaurant, architecture center. The campus is a gathering space for neighbors and visitors from around the world and my favorite location is to sit in the shadow of the towers on the south lawn landscape and watch people walking their dog, children playing and people enjoying the space as part of their every day. The project exemplifies how community-driven reuse can bring creative new uses to unusual spaces and how architectural treasures can be saved for the benefit of our communities. The reuse of these three core buildings has been an economic engine. It's created jobs and for the first time ever property and sales tax revenue. As the remaining buildings of the Richardson Olmsted campus continue to be transformed the site is growing in its role as part of Buffalo's economic and cultural revival. The project is now in good hands with Mark Mortensen who I'm here with today the current executive director. We're excited as we look forward to building on the success and the reuse of the 10 remaining buildings on site. We want to give a heartfelt thank you to the National Trust and to the Treehouse Foundation. The work that you do every day makes seemingly impossible projects like this one possible and we would be remiss to not thank New York State for providing funding and trust and guidance. There are always a lot of thank yous in these projects. This project took heart and muscle and a good deal of humor and we had all of this in our founder the late Stanford Lib C. Stan was a powerhouse. He came to Buffalo in the 80s and where others only saw abandonment and decay he saw an economic engine. He led our board that is dedicated and super smart. They have run a marathon and they just keep on running. So this award will serve as a catalyst for full redevelopment of this project that was long considered impossible. Our work, your work transforms and strengthens communities. We celebrate and share this honor with each of you tonight.