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Preservation Merit Award to Paul J. Ricciuti, FAIA, for his over 40 years of service as an
advocate for, and practitioner of, preservation and adaptive use of historic buildings.
Paul Ricciuti has practiced architecture in Ohio since 1962. For 20 years, he was principal owner
of the Youngstown and Columbus firm of Ricciuti Balog & Partners, stepping down at the end of 2005,
but continuing as a consultant to the successor, Balog Steines Hendricks & Manchester. For over 40
years he has been a proponent for, and practitioner of, preserving and reusing historic buildings.
His career direction began as a student. During the summer of 1957, under direction of Youngstown
architect Walter Damon, he worked on a design for joining two historic churches in Cornersburg. He
also studied under Bob Gaede, one of Ohio’s leading preservation architects. In the 1960s, Ricciuti
worked on a number of small historic preservation projects including Seminary High School in Poland,
Ohio. In 1972, he was commissioned to convert a vintage bank building on Main Street in Poland into
four apartments. In the early 1980s Riccitui designed the adaptive use of the Delaware Lackawanna
Rail Station and Offices in Scranton, PA, as a hotel and conference center, a project that
received national attention when an Associated Press story ran in the Los Angeles Times. He
was appointed a member of the American Institute of Architects Committee on Historic Resources.
Now a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, he has been a leading spokesperson for
preserving and reusing Ohio’s historic schools, at conferences of the Council of Educational
Facility Planners International, Ohio School Facilities Commission, and Ohio Historic Preservation
Office. He has designed school rehabilitations in Columbus, Kent, Wooster, Alliance, Steubenville,
and other communities. His other preservation projects have included the Stiles Block, Park Hotel,
and Mahoning Building in Warren; the McKinley Memorial in Niles; and the McCrory Building, exterior
of the Mahoning County Courthouse, Strouss Department Store, Higbee’s Furniture Store, Arms Museum
Carriage House, Butler Institute of American Art, Tod Homestead Cemetery Gatehouse, St. John’s
Episcopal Church, Burt Building, and Stambaugh Auditorium, all in Youngstown.
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Click
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for a list of past Ohio Historic Preservation Office Award recipients.
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