HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Consultant to the Mountain View Black Officers Club Restoration Project (MVBOCRP). Assisting the Southwest Association of Buffalo Soldiers (SWABS) in undertaking of acquiring, restoring, and renovating a historic landmark and converting it into a Research and Cultural Center in excess of $ 1.5 million dedicated to informing the public regarding the historical significance of the Buffalo Soldiers and to make known their many accomplishments in the defense of the United States of America.

Consultant to Historic Houston's Freedmens Township Bethel Missionary Baptist Church (Bethel Park):

Founded in the late 1800's by Reverend John (Jack) H. Yates, Bethel Missionary Baptist Church is located in Freedmen's Town, a post Civil War Houston neighborhood founded by freed slaves. The Church has had three sanctuaries on the same site with the earliest constructed in the 1890's.

The first was a wood framed structure that blew down as a result of the 1900 "Great Storm" in Galveston. The second wood framed structure was erected in the early 1900's & had a 40 foot tower. Enlarged & constructed of brick in 1949-50, the third sanctuary was designed by James M. Thomas, a prominent architect of African American churches. In January 2005, a fire gutted the interior of the historic structure. In 2009, the City of Houston provided emergency wall stabilization & minor structural repairs due to the unsafe conditions of the building.

The city also purchased the property in order to preserve the church’s façade & provide park space for the community. The goal of the project was to pay tribute to Bethel's significant history & architecture as well as the history of the Fourth Ward. The current Bethel Park project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2013.

Thank you to those who worked hard to bring this to the forefront.

A special thanks to the following through whose collaborative efforts, we were able to make the Bethel Park Project a reality: