LPA Receives Honor Award

LPA President Dennis Brown (right) and LPa board member Mike Goans (Left) Accept a 2015 Kpa Honor Award, presented by Kansas State Senator and LPA co-founder, Marci Francisco (middle).

On May 8, LPA received a 2015 Honor Award from the Kansas Preservation Alliance (KPA), for the work performed on the Turnhalle.  The event was held in the Old Supreme Court at the Kansas Statehouse.  Nine different projects throughout the state were honored this year.  An added treat for LPA was that the award was presented by State Senator Marci Francisco, a founding member of LPA in 1984.

LPA purchased Turnhalle in September 2012 in an attempt to halt the severe demolition by neglect  that the old (1869) rubble stone, German community center at 900 Rhode Island was experiencing.  2013 was spent performing cleanup and small repairs, commissioning a Historic Structures Report, winning a major grant from the Douglas County Commission to fund a comprehensive stabilization project, and hiring an architect and a general contractor.

The project, completed in 2014, included significant structural repairs in the proscenium arch area over the stage, repairs to a parapet wall and the masonry, new roofing systems and a number of smaller repairs.  Numerous water infiltrations were resolved.

As a contributing property to the North Rhode Island District on the National Register of Historic Places, all work performed met the intent of the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.  KPA awards projects in any one of four treatment approaches: Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration and Reconstruction.  LPA’s Honor Award was for Preservation.