Center Receives City Of Frederick Preservation Award

On Sunday, May 3rd, the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center was the location for a historic preservation awards ceremony in which the National Park Service Historic Preservation Training Center (HPTC) was presented with the stewardship award for exemplary maintenance and impeccable workmanship at the Jenkins Cannery in the City of Frederick, Maryland.

Citizens and elected officials of Frederick attended the awards ceremony to honor outstanding preservation efforts throughout the city. Awards were given in the categories of “bricks and mortar” rehabilitation, new construction, stewardship and community leadership. The awards event was scheduled to celebrate National Preservation Month this May. “This Place Matters!" is the theme of the month-long celebration sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Since the National Trust for Historic Preservation created Preservation Week in 1971 to spotlight grassroots preservation efforts in America, it has grown into an annual celebration observed by small towns and big cities, with events ranging from architectural and historic tours and award ceremonies to fundraising events, educational programs and heritage travel opportunities. The theme this year is designed to raise awareness about the power historic preservation has to protect and enhance homes, neighborhoods and communities – the places that really matter to us.

The City of Frederick 2009 Historic Preservation Award to the HPTC recognized the 13-year effort of that organization as a pioneering steward committed to saving and reusing one of the city’s important and formerly abandoned industrial buildings. The site of the Jenkins Cannery is now an area of Frederick city that is rapidly transforming itself from a former “brownfield” industrial zone to become what is envisioned to be a revitalized and vibrant neighborhood.

The rehabilitation of the Jenkins Cannery’s two large brick industrial buildings has included the replacement of deteriorated exterior features and the creation of functional interior spaces. The center has constructed state-of-the- art wood crafting, lead-based paint abatement clean rooms, painting production shops, computer workstations, meeting rooms, offices, and equipment storage functions for the three HPTC preservation teams that are located in these buildings without compromising the historic character of the structure. 

HPTC is dedicated to the safe preservation and maintenance of national parks or partner facilities by demonstrating outstanding leadership, delivering quality preservation services, and developing educational events that fulfill the competency requirements of Service employees in the career fields of historic preservation skills and crafts, risk management, maintenance, and planning, design, and construction. The center is one of four NPS training centers that directly supports the work of the NPS learning and development program. A variety of comprehensive training programs in maintenance, preservation, safety, and project management is offered on an annual basis at the center facilities within Frederick City and at the Gambrill House headquarters at Monocacy National battlefield.

Currently, over $70 million dollars of economic development construction projects are scheduled or underway surrounding the Jenkins Cannery. The Jenkins facility is owned by the City of Frederick and leased to the NPS through the General Services Administration This lease had an overall term of 11 years and will expire in 2013. Frederick City has announced plans to construct parking deck number 6, a 900-car parking garage that will be built in two phases adjacent to and on the footprint of the Jenkins Cannery. Design for the project commenced in 2008 and the preliminary designs calls for the demolition of the Jenkins Cannery Buildings to make space for the construction of the second phase of the parking structure.