Prizery Is Promoted For Award
Armed with a stellar endorsement by one of the nation’s historic
preservation experts, South Boston is seeking the National Preservation
Honor Award for The Prizery.
Community Development Coordinator Tamyra Vest submitted the application
yesterday.
“What was really wonderful was the support letter from Kennedy
Smith,” said Prizery Executive Director Chris Jones. “It
said all of the things we are hoping The Prizery will be and said
it beautifully.”
Vest agrees.
“Kennedy Smith is one of the leaders in revitalization across
the United States and to have her write such an incredibly specific
support letter is tremendous,” said the community development
coordinator. “Most applications have form letters and the fact
that Kennedy Smith’s letter is so genuine is major.”
“What struck me is having an outside perspective, having someone
who has dealt with historic preservation around the country, having
those positive comments from her simply reinforces our own feelings
about what we are doing,” said Jones.
In her letter to the Preservation Honor Awards selection committee,
Smith said she was “absolutely astonished” when she visited
The Prizery.
“I have visited hundred of historic communities over the past
two decades, both during and since my years at the National Trust’s
Main Street Center, and I cannot think of more than one or two other
projects I would consider to be even remotely as remarkable as this
one,” she wrote.
“In an economically depressed region in which vacant, historic
tobacco warehouses are commonplace and in which few new uses for
them have been found, South Boston’s town government and a
strong corps of committed volunteers have pulled off the remarkable
feat of rehabilitating a beautiful, historic brick warehouse and
making it a vibrant arts and community center, with facilities and
amenities that rival those in communities ten times South Boston’s
size: a theatre, conference/banquet facilities, art studios, museum
and even showers for people biking and hiking along the nearby Dan
River trail,” said Smith.
She also found the project’s financing unique, documenting
the financing tools from federal and state funds, tax credit equity
investments and private contributions to put together a $7.5 million
rehabilitation project.
It is The Prizery’s connection to South Boston’s Revolutionary
War history that Smith views as making the project “particularly
worthy” of the award.
When General Greene crossed the Dan River with his men, escaping
Cornwallis’ pursuit, many historians feel the tide of war was
turned.
“South Boston is deeply committed to interpreting this significant
historic event and to preserving the site at which it occurred,
and The Prizery embodies this history. The community’s strong
commitment to preserving and reusing The Prizery is a tangible and
dynamic symbol of its connection to its history.
“I have spoken with merchants and property owners throughout
South Boston, and I have never before heard such a strong sense
of excitement about a community’s future. In my 20-plus-year
history with the National Trust, I have never felt more certain
of a site’s worthiness of the Preservation Honor Award,”
concluded Smith.
Smith is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts on
downtown revitalization and small business development.
She joined the staff of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s
National Main Street Center in 1985 and served as its director from
1991-2004. She has participated in a number of landmark land use
decisions, providing economic impact analyses and expert testimony
on the effect of various types of development on historic commercial
centers.
In 2000, Fast Company magazine named her to its first-ever list
of “Fast 50 Champions of Innovation,” recognizing “creative
thinkers whose sense of style and power of persuasion change what
our world looks like and how our products perform.”
In 2004, Kennedy Smith received the National Trust’s prestigious
President’s Awards in recognition of her leadership in making
the Main Street program one of the most successful economic development
and historic preservation programs in the United States.
Smith is now a principal in the Community Land Use and Economics
group, LLC, and executive director of the League of Historic American
Theatres.
