Posted on November 6, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Beacon Communities received national recognition this week for its historic preservation of the historic Ames Shovel Works factory site in North Easton, MA.
Short video tour of Ames Shovel Works apartments
Beacon was one of 13 recipients nationwide to receive a Driehaus Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Beacon received it for preserving the buildings and redeveloping them into 113 mixed-income rental apartments, 34 of them affordable to families below 60 percent of area median income and four for households below 30 percent of median income.
MHP helped support the Ames Shovel redevelopment, providing Beacon with $16.7 million in long-term financing.
"We have a long history supporting Beacon's development of multifamily housing in Massachusetts and the Driehaus Award for Ames Shovel is well deserved because it reflects the quality and attention to detail that they bring to all their developments," said Clark Ziegler, MHP's executive director. "Beacon and the town not only preserved a great symbol of the town's industrial past, but it also provided market-rate and affordable rental housing that the region needs."
Located near downtown, the 15 building complex of wood and granite factory buildings was constructed and run by the Ames family from 1803 to 1952. The family created Ames Shovels, which were used in the California Gold Rush, the Civil War and in the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
As demand for shovels increased, the complex became one of the first assembly-line facilities in the country employing more than 500 workers and producing more than a million shovels per year.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, renewed interest in preserving the site occurred early this century when a development proposal included the demolition of several buildings. In response, Beacon Communities, which had just preserved a historic school in nearby Sharon, stepped in and worked with community groups on a plan to save the site.