Johnson’s Station receives AIA design award

LONGMONT — Johnson’s Station, a historic adaptive reuse project designed by Longmont-based F9 Productions, has received a 2026 AIA Colorado Design Award “honorable mention for historic preservation and restoration.”

The project, one of 17 recognized statewide, was honored for projects between 5,000 and 15,000 square feet.

Located in Prospect New Town in Longmont, Johnson’s Station was originally constructed as a roadside gas station and became a familiar Northern Colorado landmark before eventually being relocated and adapted for a new generation of community use.

“This one means a lot to us because it comes from our architectural peers here in Colorado,” Alex Gore, co-founder and principal architect of F9 Productions, said in a prepared statement. “We believed from the beginning that this building was worth saving. The challenge was figuring out how to respect what people remembered about it while creating something useful and relevant for the community today.”

The adaptive reuse retains several connections to the property’s past. Its neon sign was restored, vintage gas pumps were repurposed as electric vehicle chargers, and the site of a former swimming pool was transformed into a public plaza and outdoor dining area. Today, the property serves the surrounding neighborhood as a place to eat, drink, gather and connect.

“This project was about understanding what made the original building worth remembering,” Alex Gresh, who served as design architect for Johnson’s Station, said in a news release. “We wanted the new architecture to feel like an evolution of that story rather than something that erased it.”

The AIA Colorado honor is the third major design recognition for Johnson’s Station. The project received an honorable mention from the 2025 Architecture MasterPrize for Architectural Design, Restoration and Renovation and a silver award from the 2026 International Architecture and Design Awards for Renovation, Restoration and Adaptive Reuse.
Founded in Longmont in 2009, F9 Productions provides architecture, construction and development services throughout Colorado.

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