Northwestern administrators expressed pride Wednesday after hearing they won an award from the Evanston Preservation Commission on Tuesday.

The commission honored NU with its top prize at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

The Margery B. Perkins Award was given to the school for the restoration of Annie May Swift Hall, 1920 Campus Drive. The Perkins Award, named for a founding member of the commission, is not given out every year.

“Obviously it’s a huge honor,” said NU’s Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage. “It shows the level of care that our facilities management puts into maintaining buildings.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Commmission Chairman Jordan Cramer honored a total of 11 different historical preservations in the city in the past year.

The major restoration caused the jurors to give out the Perkins award this year.

“The project is a comprehensive restoration of the building inside and out,” said Carlos Ruiz, the senior planner and preservation coordinator for the city.

Construction on the 114-year-old, 27,000-square-feet building cost $11 million, according to the Web site. It was scheduled to begin in June 2007 and be completed by June 2008, according to the facilities management Web site.

The building, one of the oldest surviving buildings on campus, originally housed the School of Oratory and now contains its successor, the School of Communication, according to the Web site.

“Chicago meat-packer Gustavus F. Swift contributed funds for the building, which was named in memory of his daughter who died from typhoid fever while a student at Northwestern,” the Web site reads.

Cubbage said that despite the fact that the project was “very difficult and expensive,” the end results justified the costs.

Further restoration is still in the works on campus, Cubbage said.

“(Harris Hall) is a very similar project,” he said. “A wonderful old building in need of an update.”