The historic Lawson House, a former YMCA on Chicago's Near North Side, won a historic preservation award Tuesday for the $128 million restoration project that revitalized the building as affordable housing.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded the Lawson House the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award at a ceremony in Milwaukee on Tuesday morning.

The Victor F. Lawson House, at 30 W. Chicago Ave., was constructed in 1931 in the Art Deco architectural style. It was built as the flagship for the YMCA system in the United States and was intended to house people affordably and help them flourish, Jackie Holsten, executive director of the development firm Holsten Human Capital Development, said in a video clip presented at the awards ceremony.

The building was bright and airy in the beginning, but grew run-down and seedy over the years.

"It became a dark place, and people kept thinking, 'Let's avoid that building,'" said Holsten.

The building was sold by the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago to Lawson Partners for $1 in 2024, with the mission in mind of preserving the building as affordable housing for low-income Chicagoans, the city's Department of Housing noted.

The City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and residents of the Lawson House were all involved in the process of turning the building into a prime example of welcoming and dignified housing.

"It's reclaiming all that grandeur," said Holsten. "It's brightening up the inside, brightening up the colors, and opening the doors."

Mayor Brandon Johnson cut the ribbon for the rehabilitated Lawson House in April 2024. Holsten tackled decades' worth of deferred maintenance while upgrading building systems and restoring the historic spaces in the building, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said.

The building's 583 single-room occupancy units were converted into 409 new ones that residents can be proud of, Holsten said.

"When you walk in, you feel like, 'I am in this modern apartment, and look at all the amenities, and I feel like a human being that is whole,' as supposed to, 'Oh, I'm just cast aside, and I'm down the hall,'" Holsten said in the video clip.

Residents of Lawson House are able to control their own air conditioning and heating, and still have the beauty of historic windows, Holsten said.

The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Awards honor the "best of the best" in preservation projects around the country. The award is the highest national recognition bestowed on a preservation project by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.