The Young Preservationist of the Year Award was presented to Daniel Budish of Cleveland.
Daniel Budish has been active in historic renovation space while working for the City of Cleveland in the Department of Economic Development in 2011. While at the City, he helped save and repurpose the historic Stager Beckwith mansion – one of the last remaining mansions of Cleveland’s Millionaire’s Row – into the Children’s Museum of Cleveland. This work ignited Daniel’s passion for saving and re-imagining our main streets and downtowns.
Working on historic tax credit projects exposed Daniel to the world of tax credit finance, and enabled Daniel to launch the MainStreet America Fund – a small Historic Tax Credit deal fund that allowed Daniel to help small projects across the country unlock historic tax credit equity and get their projects off the ground.
Daniel has now once again entered the world of development and has embarked on a catalytic project on west edge of Cleveland to renovate the historic Phantasy Theater complex and provide services, spaces, and resources, to Cleveland’s LGBTQ+ Community. This major project, called Studio West 117, was recently awarded a $5M State of Ohio Historic Tax Credit.