FORT WAYNE - Two Warsaw businesses received design excellence awards recently.
Tower Bank, 120 N. Buffalo St., and K21 Health Services Pavilion, 1515 Provident Drive, received excellence in design awards Nov. 11 at the Fort Wayne Chapter of the American Institute of Architects conference.
The ceremony honored award winners from the Historic Preservation Organization in Allen County and Downtown Improvement District Organization.
Doug Routh, Schenkel Shultz Architects, Fort Wayne, submitted an application for Tower Bank, Warsaw, to receive the design award in September. The bank opened in October 2007.
Tower Bank and Schenkel Shultz Architecture won an Honor Award and top award of Jury's Choice Award.
Routh, who was Tower Bank's architect, was born and raised in Warsaw and has practiced architecture outside Warsaw for the majority of his career.
"I've worked on all of Tower Bank's facilities here in Fort Wayne, and was very excited when they said they wanted to open up a new Tower Bank Financial Center in my hometown," Routh said. "What we were able to achieve with Tower Bank on the downtown square was to create a building with interesting details to show Tower Bank's presence and compliment the fabric and history of a thriving downtown."
The judging of the building designs are done by an independent jury panel of architect peers from the American Institute of Architects.
The criteria of awards were based on how the design meets the challenges of the site, building program, design initiatives, benefits to the owner of the community and how it displayed excellence in design.K21 Health Foundation and Hoch Associates received a merit award. They applied for the awards in August.
The facility is a multi-tenant health and social services facility. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was March 30 for the the K21 Health Services Pavilion.
Hoch Associates was the architect for the building.
To receive the award, a building must have been designed by a Fort Wayne American Institute of Architects firm within the past five years.
