Paramount Center and Performance Development Center, Boston
In a dramatic illustration of the adaptive reuse of an existing facility, the $92 million Paramount Center represents the transformation of an aging movie house and the adjacent and abandoned Washington Street building into a vital mixed-use center of learning and life in the heart of Boston’s Theatre District.
“This theater was a Boston landmark, which had been closed for decades and was in such disrepair it was unrecognizable inside,” says Peggy Ings, associate vice president of government and community relations at Emerson College, owner of the Paramount Center, adding that the college is committed to historic preservation and responded to a request from the City of Boston to restore the Paramount Center.