Excellence Award Spotlight: SUNY Broome Culinary & Event Center
A look up at the front facade of the historic Carnegie Library in Binghamton — now SUNY Broome’s Culinary & Event Center.
SUNY Broome’s Culinary & Event Center has been named one of this year’s Excellence in Historic Preservation Award winners.
“Since the very beginning, community colleges have been democracy’s college, a place where anyone could pursue knowledge and education, not just a special few,” said Dr. Kevin Drumm, President of SUNY Broome Community College. “This means that in addition to keeping the historic building intact, the SUNY Broome Culinary & Event Center is successfully preserving the building’s essential mission as the people’s college – a place of learning open to all.”
The Beaux Arts-style Carnegie Library opened in downtown Binghamton in 1904 and was home to the city’s library for 96 years. The building remained vacant from 2000-2016, falling into a state of disrepair. Thanks to a meticulous restoration, this historic building is serving an educational purpose once again as SUNY Broome’s state-of-the-art Culinary & Event Center. In addition to technologically advanced culinary, hospitality, and event amenities, many historic details have been painstakingly restored, including elaborate plaster and ceiling ornamentation, swirling ironwork, and original tile floors.
“Despite years of vacancy, Binghamton’s Carnegie Library remained a landmark for the community,” said Preservation League President Jay DiLorenzo. “In rehabilitating this historic space, SUNY Broome has preserved an important piece of the city’s history while making it relevant and functional for its modern use.”
Above: A look inside the newly restored Culinary & Event Center. Creating effective ventilation and facility functions while keeping the historic character of the building required innovative design. This ultimately led to the construction of a new addition annexed to the back of the building where the kitchens and elevator are located. This was an incredibly difficult adaptive reuse project, completely reconfiguring this historic building’s use. The space is now a model for other culinary educational facilities – and a true preservation success story.
Members of the project team celebrated the completed restoration and opening of the Culinary & Event Center with a ribbon cutting on October 7, 2021.
The SUNY Broome Culinary & Event Center project was funded thanks in part to state and federal Historic Tax Credits, New Market Tax Credits, SUNY Community College Capital Funds, NYS Municipal Facilities Program, and an Empire State Development Corp. grant.
The SUNY Broome Culinary & Event Center project team included: SUNY Broome Community College – Dr. Kevin Drumm, President | Visionary project leadership; Michael Sullivan, VP for Administrative & Financial Affairs | Project funding procurement; Dr. Rey Wojdat, Professor / Former Chairperson of Hospitality Programs | Culinary and event programming, amenities design; David Ligeikis, Director of Facilities Management | Historic renovation and new construction management; Dr. Francis Battisti, Former Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer; Beth Mollen, former Associate Vice President & Dean of Business and Professional Studies; Jeanette Tillotson, Associate Vice President and Controller; Monica Chiao, Assistant Controller; Penny Haynes, Vice President for Academic Affairs
Click here for everything about the 2021 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award winners!
Since 1984, the Preservation League’s statewide awards program has highlighted projects, organizations, publications, and individuals that exemplify best practices in historic preservation and recognize the people who are using historic preservation to build stronger neighborhoods, create local jobs, provide affordable housing, open our eyes to overlooked history, and save the places that are special to all of us.