Sharon’s new, mixed-income Wilber School Apartments has earned national recognition for both sustainable design and historic preservation, in addition to being awarded a LEED gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The National Housing & Rehabilitation Association (NH&RA) named the Wilber School Apartments the Best Historic Rehabilitation Involving New Construction at the 2010 J. Timothy "Timmy" Anderson Awards for Excellence in Historic Rehabilitation, according to a statement. The project’s architect, Cambridge-based Prellwitz Chilinski Assoc. (PCA), and its developers, Boston’s Beacon Communities LLC and Canton-based Frontier Enterprises Inc., accepted the award at the NH&RA’s Fall Developers Forum event in Boston on Oct. 19.

The design and development team converted a long-shuttered, historically significant community school into 75 mixed-income apartments, according to a statement. The 105,000-square-foot development program consisted of full rehabilitation of a school originally built in 1922 and the addition of a modern, complimentary new wing. Approximately one-third of the apartments are reserved for households making up to 30 percent, 50 percent or 100 percent of the area median income, according to a statement.

"It’s what adaptive re-use is all about-a committed team creating the financing and design necessary to reconnect buildings to the fabric of communities…and doing it in a way that is both historically sensitive and forward thinking," said PCA’s David Chilinski, the project’s principal-in-charge.