Preservation Austin Awards $15,000 in Winter 2024 Grant Cycle
Preservation Austin is pleased to award $15,000 to four Austin-based preservation projects for their Winter 2024 grant cycle. We are proud to be able to provide the following worthy projects with grant funding: Lydia Street window restoration, Zeta Phi Beta window restoration, Palm Park Shelter House engineering, and the I-35 Capital Express Expansion documentation project.
Our grants program fuels essential projects across three categories: education, bricks and mortar, and planning/survey/historic designation. By providing funding to important projects citywide, the non-profit aims to financially support Austinites as they preserve our shared past.
OUR SUMMER GRANT CYCLE CLOSES ON JUNE 15 – MORE INFO AND APPLY AT THE LINK BELOW.
Lydia Street Depot | $2,000 Bricks & Mortar Grant
Photo: Courtesy of Francois Levy
Recognizable from Preservation Austin’s 30th Anniversary Homes Tour, this Lydia Street home is the former Granger, Texas train depot and was constructed circa 1904. The homeowners, an architect and general contractor, moved the building from its original location to East Austin’s vibrant Guadalupe Neighborhood and restored the property in 2003.
Today, eight of the original eleven windows in the main waiting room of the former depot are extant, but badly in need of weather stripping and reconstruction. A bricks and mortar grant from Preservation Austin will allow this home’s devoted stewards to significantly address energy performance by restoring all windows, ensuring that all sashes are operable for spring and autumn cooling, and weather-tight for summer and winter energy conservation and comfort.
Zeta Phi Beta | $5,500 Brick and Mortar Grant
Photo: Courtesy of Zeta Phi Beta
Known as the Thompson House, this former residence was built in 1877 by painting contractor John W. Thompson and his wife Jennie L. Metz. The Robertson Hill landmark is a restrained Victorian-era design and features a distinctive porch. The Alpha Kappa Zeta Chapter of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority acquired the property in 1967, became a City of Austin Landmark in 1977, and a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1978.
Having completed the necessary asbestos abatement with funding from a previous Preservation Austin grant, the team working on the Zeta Phi Beta Meeting House can now proceed with the essential work of window restoration. A bricks and mortar grant will support the cleaning, repair, painting, and reinstallation of all the historic windows, marking another important step in this community landmark’s restoration journey.
Waterloo Greenway Conservancy | $4,000 Planning/Survey/Historic District Grant
Photo: Courtesy of Waterloo Greenway Conservancy
Preservation Austin is pleased to support the Waterloo Greenway Conservancy with their third grant award in five years. This most recent grant funding will support engineering fees for the rehabilitation of the historic Palm Park Shelter House.
This rustic fieldstone dog-trot originally operated as a community structure, stage, and bathroom. Constructed in 1933 within Sir Swante Palm Park and adjacent to the historic Palm School, the Shelter House is the only remaining feature of a downtown play center that once featured a pool and playground. Today the structure is inoperational after decades of vacancy and neglect. The Waterloo Greenway Conservancy recognizes the need to devote intentional preservation efforts to rehabilitate the building to its former condition and functionality. A planning grant from Preservation Austin will support consultant fees and rehabilitation efforts to ensure that the restored Shelter House is a true representation of the cultural value it once provided to Austin residents.
I-35 Capital Express Expansion | $3,500 Education Grant
Graphic: Liz Moskowitz, Photo: Courtesy of TxDOT
As over 100 businesses and homes have received notification that they will be displaced to make way for the imminent expansion of I-35, artist Liz Moskowitz intends to document these spaces which have been an essential part of Austin’s cultural fabric for decades.
A long-time Austin resident, Moskowitz will create a body of work that honors a selection of the local, small businesses being impacted by the expansion through a documentary portraiture project. Several of these businesses, such as Nature's Treasures, Star Seed's Cafe, and the Austin Chronicle, are legacy businesses as defined by PA: beloved local establishments open for 20 years or more. The culmination of Moskowitz’s project will be a public exhibition at the Future Front gallery in September and will include photos, interview quotes, and tangible artifacts from each of the documented places. Ultimately, the photos and interview transcriptions will be donated to the Austin History Center for use by researchers, archivists, and generations of Austinities, now and in the future. An education grant from Preservation Austin will support this artistic documentation of the ephemeral resources in our changing city.