This year, Mattson Macdonald Young is proud to have won an Adaptive Reuse Award from the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota for our involvement in helping to preserve the first Beaux-Arts style building built in Minneapolis, MN. The former Pillsbury Library has been revived into an office building that met ADA-accessible entrance requirements, preserved original stained glass skylights, and provided an environmentally green building. The new ADA entrance was a steel frame addition that needed to match existing architecture while creating new openings into the existing 100 year old building. Other structural analysis and design included reinforcing existing wood roof beams and clay tile/concrete floor arches to meet current load requirements.

We also received a Restoration/Rehabilitation Award for our involvement in the restoration of the Warden’s House in Stillwater, MN for the State of Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater. This work was a large undertaking to restore decades of deferred maintenance in the over 150 year old building. Structural work was also needed to meet new use conditions while keeping the existing architecture intact. Many structural challenges were abound when melding bygone wood frame construction methods to today’s methods.