Preservation Erie's 2025 Greater Erie Awards

Erin Phillips

Celebrate local historic preservation success stories with the board of grassroots volunteer organization Preservation Erie as they recognize local projects, and learn from keynote speaker Rick Reinhard as he speaks about adaptive reuse options of abandoned historic churches.

THURSDAY, OCT. 23

The volunteers from the grassroots local historic preservation group Preservation Erie hope that you'll join them for their annual Greater Erie Awards (GEA), taking place at the adaptively reused (and previous GEA winner) Erie Center For Arts and Technology, housed in the former Wayne School building. Successful local preservation projects, both big and small, are recognized by the group in this annual ceremony which will include before-and-after photos and information about the awarded projects, as well as a keynote address.

This year's keynote speaker is Rick Reinhard, who will be traveling to Erie from the Washington D.C. area for the event. Reinhard works for the Niagara Consulting Group, and focuses his efforts on house-of-worship reuse and redevelopment. He will be speaking about the need to reimagine the purposes of holy structures in order to maintain the built history of a city.

"In hot real-estate markets developers often circle emptying houses of worship like buzzards, waiting for it to close, so they can swoop in and redevelop the properties into, say, luxury condos," Reinhard shares. "In communities like Erie and my old hometowns of Syracuse and Buffalo, the challenge is more complex. For example, the Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Buffalo just announced the closing of 70 churches in the eight-county Western New York region. How can the community possibly create new uses for 70 Roman Catholic churches all at once?"

"In the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe, houses of worship have been redeveloped into just about everything: housing, retail, office, arts and culture, you name it. The key is what makes sense for an individual church at a specific location in a particular time," Reinhard comments. His keynote speech will center around what Erie can do with its increasing stock of churches that no longer serve their purpose as houses of worship, and how municipal-level incentives can help the process along so that the built history that helps define our region is preserved.

There will be five awards given at the event which celebrate local preservation success in the categories of Preservation Excellence and Adaptive Reuse. Join in celebration with the board and friends of Preservation Erie, alongside the award recipients, to learn more about their projects, to learn from Richard Reinhard about working to reuse Erie's sacred spaces, and enjoy hors d'oeuvres and drinks from Cali's West. 

For more information on event details and award recipients, visit preservationerie.org

6 p.m. // ECAT's Ada Lawrence Room, 650 East Ave. // $25 // For tickets and info: tickets.eriereader.com

Erin Phillips is the Secretary of the Board of Preservation Erie