In each Transitions section of Preservation magazine, we highlight places of local and national importance that have recently been restored, are currently threatened, have been saved from demolition or neglect, or have been lost. Here are five from Fall 2025.

Restored: Alexandria Flour Company Cooper Shop

When builder and developer Murray Bonitt saw the structural report for a historic waterfront warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia, he knew saving it wouldn’t be easy. The building had severe water damage and was too unstable to be restored in place. In 1856, the Alexandria Flour Company had commissioned a cooper shop on the site to produce flour storage barrels. An 1896 cyclone is thought to have destroyed that structure, but it was rebuilt soon after. The building served different uses through the decades, including as a machine shop and later as an office for Southern Ironworks in the mid-1900s.

After purchasing the property in 2019, Bonitt made his case to the city, which approved his plan to deconstruct the building and then rebuild it using as many of the original materials as possible. Members of Bonitt’s team carefully dismantled the structure and stored the pieces nearby. They poured a concrete cap atop the old brick foundation, allowing the new steel frame to sit on the original footprint. Designed by Winstanley Architects & Planners, the rebuilt project incorporates the original brick on the interior and exterior walls. The first-floor ceiling is clad in reclaimed wood flooring from the upper level, and the building’s antique trusses were reused on the second-floor ceiling. Now called Cooper Mill, the 6,400-square-foot tavern and event space was unveiled in December 2024. “It was a huge undertaking, but it came out so well,” says Bonitt. “It was definitely a legacy project.”

Restored: Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch

There are more than a dozen ways to enter Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, but none are quite as grand as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch. Architect John H. Duncan designed the 1892 archway, which sits at the park’s northernmost tip within Grand Army Plaza. Now, following a multiyear effort, the Prospect Park Alliance has restored the 70-foot-tall arch. In 2018, the nonprofit group secured $8.9 million in mayoral funding and began planning for the massive undertaking, which began in 2023. “Water leakage through the roof membrane [was] really deteriorating the interior,” says David Yum, the alliance’s director of architecture and preservation.

The team replaced the roof and drainage system, cleaned the structure’s granite facade, and restored some of its bronze-and-cast-iron spiral staircases. The arch’s three bronze statues—crafted by Beaux-Arts sculptor Frederick William MacMonnies to commemorate Brooklyn soldiers and sailors who served in the Civil War and previous wars—were restored by the NYC Parks Citywide Monuments Conservation Program. The treasured entryway reopened to the public in June 2025. “When we had to close the site for restoration, it underscored how many people actually pass under the arch as a gateway to Prospect Park,” says Yum. “It was amazing to see how people had this look of excitement that [this] entrance was back.”

Saved: Metro Theater

Twenty years after the Metro Theater was gutted and padlocked, the New York City cinema has a new steward. The nonprofit Upper West Side Cinema Center purchased the long-disused building earlier this year, with plans to restore the original exterior and transform the space into a five-screen art house theater. Originally named the Midtown Theater when it opened in 1933, the cinema was designed by New York architects Boak & Paris with Art Deco elements. After a stint as an adult film house in the 1970s, the Midtown reopened as a repertory theater in 1982 and was renamed the Metro Theater.

The property changed hands a couple more times over the years, but in the mid-2000s its historic interior was ripped out. When film producer Ira Deutchman heard the theater was potentially on the market in 2024, he, film programmer Adeline Monzier, and communications expert Beth Krieger founded the nonprofit and started raising money to purchase the site. The Upper West Side Cinema Center closed the $6.9 million deal earlier this year with the help of state grant funding. The organization has brought Voith & Mactavish Architects, a preservation-minded firm, on board to design the facade restoration and interior rehabilitation. “The terra-cotta facade is just gorgeous, even in its current shape, which is showing a lot of wear and tear,” says Deutchman. “We’re going to do everything we can to make [the exterior] look as original as possible.”

Lost: Texas Pavilion

The 1968 World’s Fair in San Antonio brought a renewed wave of midcentury design to the city as it prepared to host more than six million visitors from across the globe. One of the buildings erected for the fair was the 180,000-square-foot Texas Pavilion, designed by architecture firm Caudill Rowlett Scott to showcase Texas history during the six-month event. In 1973, the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) took over the Brutalist building’s management.