Twenty-five years ago, the National Trust Community Investment Corporation (NTCIC) formed. It soon made its first investment in the rehabilitation of a long-vacant historic property—the Dalton Building in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Today, NTCIC, a subsidiary of the National Trust, has supported nearly 250 development projects, from housing to health-care facilities to schools. It has invested more than $2.5 billion in tax credit equity over the years, according to David Clower, NTCIC’s president and CEO. “We’ve pushed that capital into mostly low-income, disinvested, highly distressed communities,” he says. “We’re revitalizing communities through the tools we have.”

Those tools include state and federal historic tax credits and New Markets tax credits. Additionally, NTCIC finances solar tax credit investments in large-scale solar panel installations through its own subsidiary, NT Solar. As the National Trust observes its 75th anniversary, the organization also celebrates a quarter-century of NTCIC’s impact on historic places around the country. Here we highlight three adaptive reuse projects that show how, as Clower says, NTCIC is “making these places a viable part of the future.”

KIPP Philadelphia Preparatory Academy, Philadelphia

When a team of architects assessed the former John Greenleaf Whittier School in Philadelphia to determine how it could be restored, they found chalkboards that still had writing on them, as if the students had just left. In reality, the roughly 78,000-square-foot school had been vacant for several years, falling into an ever-worsening state of disrepair.

“A lot of these buildings had a very intentional way of how they greeted and met the neighborhood,” says Mayva Donnon, a partner with KSS. “But over the years the functionality of schools changes—everybody ends up coming in through a side door because of some security procedure. So one of our big initiatives was to reopen the front entry.”

It was important to KIPP Philadelphia that the design reconnect the school with the surrounding neighborhood, where some of the students live. “Our students, like all students, deserve to learn in joyful and inspiring spaces,” says KIPP Philadelphia CEO Natalie Wiltshire. “This is a building they can be proud to come to every day.” —Kim O’Connell

To enable the rehabilitation of the John Greenleaf Whittier School, the National Trust Community Investment Corporation provided a $6 million New Markets tax credit allocation and facilitated an equity investment in the $4.5 million in federal historic tax credits generated by the preservation efforts.

Nine Orchard, New York City

The completion of the S. Jarmulowsky Bank Building in 1912 heralded an important architectural moment for New York City’s Lower East Side. You couldn’t miss the 12-story structure, with its lavish Renaissance Revival detailing and the 47-foot-tall domed spire on its rooftop. Commissioned by banker and philanthropist Sender Jarmulowsky and designed by Rouse & Goldstone, the Beaux-Arts building projected elegance and success. “It was a bit of a beacon in the neighborhood, not just as an immigrant bank, but also as sort of a symbol of local industry,” says architectural historian Kerri Culhane.

Along with a stately banking hall and retail space, the building contained manufacturing lofts on its upper floors. It continued to operate as a garment-making hub and then a piano factory for decades after the bank closed. Without consistent maintenance, the building deteriorated dramatically. By the time developer DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners purchased it in 2011, the facade’s terra-cotta detailing was cracking, and water penetration had damaged the floors.

The National Trust Community Investment Corporation facilitated equity investments in the federal and state historic tax credits generated by the revitalization efforts at Nine Orchard.

4340 Duncan, St. Louis

In 1930, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch opened a rotogravure printing plant at 4340 Duncan Ave. Though the technology wasn’t brand-new—it was developed in Europe during the 19th century—American newspapers began to use it regularly around the end of World War I. Once they realized how significantly it could improve their photo reproduction quality, major papers like the powerful Post-Dispatch invested in their own gravure printing facilities.

Mauran, Russell, & Crowell, the architects behind other important local structures such as Union Market and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, designed the industrial brick building. In 1976 the Post-Dispatch sold the plant, and by the 1990s it was disused.

Today the rehabilitated building again houses forward-thinking technologies, but of an entirely different kind. 4340 Duncan is part of the 200-acre Cortex Innovation District, founded in 2002 by a group of city institutions as a center for tech startups and biomedical research and development. Washington University, which owns the former printing plant, commissioned architecture firm HOK to design its 2019 conversion into space for biotech labs and offices.

The $44 million development was funded in part through federal and state historic tax credits and New Markets tax credits. Preservation consultant Karen Bode Baxter worked with HOK to ensure that the rehabilitation would honor the original building. General contractor Tarlton repointed the entire brick facade and replaced most of the historic steel-sash windows with energy-efficient ones in similar materials and proportions. HOK kept the interior’s industrial aesthetic, saving most of the original exposed ceilings and concrete floors. It retained building elements that facilitated the printing process, including a system of overhead trolleys and rails. “We kept those in place, cleaned them up, and they’ve become a highlight inside the building,” says HOK’s Jodie Crohn, the lead interior designer on the project.

Editor's Note: This story was updated on April 30, 2025.