STEELSTACKS ARTS AND CULTURAL CAMPUS RECEIVES 2017 RUDY BRUNER AWARD

Bethlehem’s SteelStacks campus was presented with the national Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence on Thursday September 7th. This multi-phased project was a part of a public-private partnership that involved, among others, the Bethlehem Redevelopment Authority, ArtsQuest, PBS39, and the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, who donated the land on the historic Bethlehem Steel plant site. On behalf of this multi-award winning project, Tony Hanna, Executive Director of the Bethlehem Redevelopment Authority, accepted this gold medal award - the Rudy Bruner’s highest recognition of urban places distinguished by their economic and social contributions to America’s cities.  SITIO's Antonio Fiol-Silva spoke about the unique challenges of the site and the transformational impacts that enhanced a vibrant arts and cultural community.  Fiol-Silva lead the SteelStacks Master Plan, The Levitt Pavilion, and the Hoover-Mason Trestle projects as Principal-In-Charge and Planner, and Karen Blanchard was the Design Architect.

ANTONIO FIOL-SILVA SERVES AS A ULI EXPERT ON CREATIVE PLACEMAKING IN DETROIT

ULI Michigan hosted a workshop with national and local experts to generate placemaking ideas for the Henry Ford Health System’s new state-of-the-art cancer center, which will be located south of its campus in Detroit’s New Center.  Made possible by a Creative Placemaking grant from ULI’s Building Healthy Places Initiative, with the generous support of the Kresge Foundation, the workshop - Chaired by ULI’s Senior Visiting Fellow in Creative Placemaking Juanita Hardy - explored opportunities to create active living, nutrition, education and community green space that links the cancer center with other healthy lifestyle assets in Detroit. 

ANTONIO FIOL-SILVA SERVES AS JUROR FOR ULI NORTH TEXAS IMPACT AWARDS

For the second consecutive year Antonio joined four other ULI experts from across the country to jury the 2017 ULI Texas Impact Awards in support of transformative land use developments, best real estate practices, and creative visioning.  The selection process included visits to over thirty projects, ranging in scale and type from Toyota’s new North American Headquarters in Plano to the new Eagle Family Plaza at the Dallas Museum of Art.  On October 3, 2017, the third annual Impact Awards Event will spotlight visionary developers and outstanding developments in North Texas, with the winners of the four competitive awards announced that evening at Union Station. 

BOXWOOD ARTS WITH SITIO'S ANTONIO FIOL-SILVA DEBUTS PLANS FOR NEW DOWNTOWN THEATER & CULTURAL CENTER

Boxwood Arts Group along with SITIO’s Antonio Fiol-Silva, recently unveiled plans for The Boxwood Arts Theatre and Cultural Center to Haddonfield Commissioners.  This new 26,000 sf Center includes a 365-seat theater, paired with a 4,000 sf ballroom and various art galleries set to elevate Haddonfield New Jersey into South Jersey’s premiere performing and visual arts. For recent press click here.

STEELSTACKS ARTS & CULTURAL CAMPUS NAMED 2017 RUDY BRUNER AWARD FOR URBAN EXCELLENCE GOLD MEDALIST

THE STEELSTACKS ARTS AND CULTURAL CAMPUS HAS BEEN NAMED THE 2017 RUDY BRUNER AWARD FOR URBAN EXCELLENCE GOLD MEDALIST!  This biennial award celebrates transformative places distinguished by physical design and contributions to the economic, environmental and social vitality of America’s cities. A nationwide committee of urban experts determined the winners from among five finalists, naming SteelStacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Gold Medalist and recipient of $50,000 to enhance the project. Completed in 2016, SteelStacks is the $93.5 million transformation of an abandoned steel mill into a mixed-use art, cultural, and entertainment district that hosts over 1.5 million visitors annually for a variety of events.

This transformational project was created by the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem under the leadership of Executive Director Tony Hanna, and continues to enhance and honor the historical Bethlehem Steel site with a vibrant arts and cultural community symbolizing the rebirth of the region. SITIO's Antonio Fiol-Silva lead the SteelStacks Master Plan, The Levitt Pavilion, and the Hoover-Mason Trestle projects as Principal-In-Charge and Planner, and Karen Blanchard was the Design Architect.

SITIO WELCOMES BROOKE KERVI

SITIO welcomes Brooke Kervi to our team! Brooke joins us from Montana, bringing a variety of architecture experience from past internships while completing her studies at Montana State University. New to Philadelphia, Brooke is excited to explore this city and others along the east coast.  In her spare time Brooke is a soup aficionado and enjoys cliff jumping when back home in Bozeman.

REVIVING PHILADELPHIA'S CITY HALL COURTYARD

We’re excited to see City Hall’s Courtyard brought into the spotlight! As one of the City’s most iconic locations, the Courtyard is the obvious next public space to add to the recent revival of Dilworth Park and the soon to be completed Love Park.  While at WRT, SITIO’s Antonio Fiol-Silva was Principal-in-Charge and Karen Blanchard was Project Architect of this project that produced a historical report and proposed a design vision for this unique space. Additionally, Fiol-Silva also served as a juror for the place-making grant from Southwest Airlines.  For more information click here.

SITIO'S ANTONIO FIOL-SILVA TALKS IMPORTANCE OF EQUITY IN GRAND RAPIDS FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

SITIO’s Antonio Fiol-Silva, as faculty member of the Rose Center for Public Leadership in Land Use, collaborated with the National League of Cities and the Urban Land Institute to study equity in development of public land in Grand Rapids. The national experts spent the week in Grand Rapids to learn more about community plans and programs, local development tools, and conducted interviews with key stakeholders. As part of their investigation they sought to answer: How can Grand Rapids align its community and economic development policies, practices, and incentives to achieve a more equitable city? Antonio Fiol-Silva remarked that there is broad recognition that inequities exist in the city “In this community, all need to have access to opportunity for the community to succeed.”

For more information on this collaboration click here.

ROSE FELLOWSHIP FACULTY ADVISOR, SITIO’S ANTONIO FIOL-SILVA, GUIDES GRAND RAPID’S MAYOR

The Rose Center for Public Leadership, jointly operated by the National League of Cities (NLC) and the Urban Land Institute (ULI), is working this week with Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss to explore new and innovative ways the city can best utilize public land and finance incentives to support the community’s vision of vibrant neighborhoods with high-quality parks, a riverfront recreation trail, more mobility and housing options and economic opportunity for people from all walks of life. The Rose Center's mission is to encourage and support excellence in land use decision-making by providing public officials with access to information, best practices, peer networks and other resources to foster creative, efficient, practical and sustainable land-use policies. Each year, the center's Daniel Rose Fellowship program invites the mayors of four large U.S. cities to select a team with land use decision-making authority to receive technical assistance on a local land-use challenge. More information can be found by clicking here.

SITIO'S KAREN BLANCHARD JOINS BISNOW POWER SERIES PANEL: WOMEN OF INFLUENCE

On April 5th SITIO’s Principal Karen Blanchard will join an esteemed panel of female executives for the BISNOW Power Series : Women of Influence in Commercial Real Estate – A Celebration of Philadelphia’s Brightest Stars. By representing all walks of the Philadelphia built environment and real estate community, this panel discussion will create a unique opportunity to confer new trends, present current projects, and discuss opportunities and challenges of expanding the boundaries in a traditionally male dominated industry.

STEELSTACKS NAMED RUDY BRUNER AWARD FOR URBAN EXCELLENCE FINALIST

The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence (RBA) has named the SteelStacks Arts and Cultural Campus as one of the five finalists for its 2017 Gold and Silver medal prizes. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, RBA is a biennial design award recognizing transformative places that contribute to the economic, environmental, and social vitality of American cities. Seventy-eight projects in 27 states have been honored since its founding. Finalists and medalists are chosen by a nationwide committee of urban experts through an in-depth evaluation process involving input from the award application, site visits, interviews with project participants and community members, and committee discussions. Next month the RBA staff will begin site visits to each finalist project in preparation for the committee’s selection of the medal winners in June. More information on all of the finalists can be found here.

“Over the past 30 years, the Rudy Bruner Award has honored a diversity of pivotal places, from Seattle’s Pike Place Market to Project Row Houses in Houston to New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, bringing to light their contributions to improving the quality of life in America,” says RBA Founder Simeon Bruner. “After 3 decades, we’re still discovering and recognizing new ways that public and private ingenuity and design can make our cities more accessible, inclusive, and beautiful for everyone.”

The SteelStacks Arts and Cultural Campus is truly a transformational project created by the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem under the leadership of  Executive Director Tony Hanna, that continues to enhance the historical Bethlehem Steel site with a vibrant arts and cultural community at both a local and regional level. SITIO's Antonio Fiol-Silva lead the SteelStacks Master Plan, The Levitt Pavilion, and the Hoover-Mason Trestle projects as Principal-In-Charge and Planner, and Karen Blanchard was the Design Architect.  We’re excited to share this fantastic project with the jury.

SITIO'S ANTONIO FIOL-SILVA MODERATES ULI PANEL DISCUSSION

This January SITIO’s Antonio Fiol-Silva, Chair of ULI Philadelphia and a member of the Philadelphia Historic Commission, moderated the panel discussion “Preserving the Past and Building the Future”. Fiol-Silva was joined on the panel by Jackie Buhn, president of AthenianRazak; Bobby Fijan, principal of Cross Properties; and Paul Steinke, executive director of the Preservation Alliance and former general manager of Reading Terminal Market. Click here to find more about the discussion in the latest issue ULI's international publication UrbanLand.