First Bank of the United States Rehabilitation, Philadelphia

The oldest bank building in the country reopened to the public on July 1, 2026, after fifty years closed. The First Bank of the United States was built between 1795 and 1797, generally credited to Samuel Blodgett Jr., and its marble Corinthian portico is one of the earliest monumental classical facades in America. Since 1976 the building had been used mostly for storage and offices.

The National Park Service completed a $43 million rehabilitation covering planning, preservation, construction and exhibit installation, timed to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The building sits inside Independence National Historical Park at 120 South 3rd Street in Old City and is now open Thursday through Sunday.

Project Scope

Interior and exterior rehabilitation of a National Historic Landmark, plus exhibit design and installation. John Milner Architects of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania was the architect and The Bedwell Company of West Chester was the general contractor. Funding came from two sources: $39.3 million through the Great American Outdoors Act Legacy Restoration Fund and $4.5 million from the Independence Historical Trust.

The rehabilitation reintroduced public circulation to a structure that had no code-compliant visitor route, which is the recurring problem with landmark buildings that closed before accessibility law caught up with them.

Why It Matters

This is one of the largest federal preservation projects delivered under the Great American Outdoors Act Legacy Restoration Fund, and it’s a useful reference for what that money actually buys. Forty-three million dollars on a building this size is not a facade cleaning. It’s the cost of getting egress, accessibility, environmental systems and life safety into a 230-year-old masonry structure without damaging the fabric that makes it worth keeping.

Preservation teams pricing similar work on institutional landmarks now have a completed, publicly funded benchmark to point at.

Project Team & Details