CHRISTIANSBURG – The Montgomery Museum of Art & History was selected as a recipient of a Community Preservation Award from Preservation Virginia, a large Richmond-based nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering, supporting, and sustaining Virginia’s historic places through leadership in advocacy, education, revitalization, and stewardship.
According to Preservation Virginia, studies show that communities and quality of life are enhanced when individuals, organizations and local governments adapt, restore and highlight historic places and stories unique to Virginia. To highlight this work, each year since 1971, Preservation Virginia recognizes exemplary historic preservation projects and historical research in the Commonwealth.
The Montgomery Museum was selected as a recipient of this prestigious award for successful efforts to revitalize a former, empty bank building in downtown Christiansburg. The building transformation is a great example of adaptive reuse to promote economic vitality while providing an educational community gathering space for the County and the New River Valley. Since moving its operations to downtown Christiansburg in mid-2022, the museum has reimagined the 15,000 square foot building with a guiding vision to be a premiere, regional cultural center that offers creative, inspirational, and enriching programming for the entire community of Montgomery County and the New River Valley.
A contributing structure to the downtown historic district, the museum now operates as a large community gathering space and includes administrative offices, business incubator space, galleries and an exhibit hall, a research library and archives, an education and digitization lab, and conference facilities for meetings and receptions.
“We are honored to be recognized by Preservation Virginia,” said Casey Jenkins, Executive Director of the Montgomery Museum. “This award represents the hard work and dedication by museum staff and board over the past three years as we continue to make transformative improvements to museum spaces.”
Museum staff will travel to Richmond, Virginia on Sept. 27 to accept the award and celebrate this achievement. For more information on Preservation Virginia and other awardees, visit https://preservationvirginia.org/.
Montgomery Museum of Art and History