HARRISBURG, PA—Wallace Roberts & Todd, an integrated design firm of architects, landscape architects and planners, has received AIA Pennsylvania's Architectural Excellence Award for the Hoover-Mason Trestle Steel Walk it designed as part of Bethlehem's redevelopment of steel mill properties as cultural arts and entertainment spaces. It's the firm's second honor for its design work on the Bethlehem project.

As previously reported by GlobeSt.com, the firm received a Global Award of Excellence from the Urban Land Institute for its design of SteelStacks, an arts and cultural campus located on the former Bethlehem Steel plant on Bethlehem's SouthSide.

"The Hoover-Mason Trestle provides visitors with a very unique perspective on the site that cannot be achieved at ground level,” says Tony Hanna, executive director of the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem. “Working together with our partners, Sands Bethlehem, ArtsQuest and PBS 39, we were able to find creative solutions for reusing an abandoned industrial site. The master planning and related architecture completed by WRT allowed us to develop and create this unique vantage point for visitors. The Trestle combines history, architecture, and campus connections, providing a special place for people to visit, learn and enjoy a wide variety of entertainment and community events.”

The Hoover Mason Trestle was both the literal and metaphorical backbone of the Bethlehem Steel plant. Named for the engineering firm that designed it, the Hoover-Mason Trestle allowed electrically powered rail cars to deliver 90 tons of iron ore daily to each blast furnace. In 2011, the 10-acre central core directly in front of the Trestle and blast furnaces was redeveloped into multiple performance venues, plazas and parks - along with the sculpturally angular open-air stage Levitt Pavilion.

As the next phase of the adaptive reuse success, the Hoover-Mason Trestle will now be connected into this park and re-envisioned as a pedestrian-oriented promenade that supports circulation, historic interpretation and passive recreation uses. The development of the Hoover-Mason Trestle is a continuation of the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem's efforts to effectively redevelop the former Bethlehem Steel works site. An overhead walkway allows for better pedestrian connections between the Sands Casino Resort development on the property's eastern end and the SteelStacks campus on the west.

“To walk on the Hoover-Mason Trestle is to journey through the industrial archeology of America,” said Antonio Fiol-Silva, FAIA, Principal of WRT. “This project is a great example of one of the areas where WRT really excels; where we have the opportunity to completely repurpose and give new life to an existing structure.”