The Hopewell Borough Council has approved an amended services agreement to Mills Schnoering Architects, LLC for architectural services with the Hopewell Railroad Station project.
The borough in October 2024 was awarded a $147,000 grant award from the New Jersey Historic Trust through the New Jersey Preservation Fund to help fund Phase II of the exterior improvements for the station.
Council members approved the amended architectural services agreement with Mills Schnoering Architects for the firm’s additional professional services with restoration project in the amount of $14,580 on June 5 at the Council’s regular meeting.
Mills Schnoering Architects, which is based in Princeton and Philadelphia, was hired by the borough to plan and oversee the restoration of the historic train station project. The station was built in 1876 and acquired by the Borough in 1993.
The project started in June 2024 with the roof recoated, a new gutter liner placed on the northeast corner, bricks replaced, and mortar joints renewed on the lower level and first level to prevent water damage and issues. Spot repointing (renewing mortar joints) in the masonry was done on the upper two floors.
In addition, there were brick replacements, reinforcement of the brownstone, graffiti removal, replacement of the door to the basement, adn replacement of one of the guard rails. The balcony was re-roofed, balustrades were reset, and new rails were put in.
The exterior of the historic train station had suffered from what all old buildings suffer from rain, wind, snow, ice, high and low temperatures that lead to peeling paint, metal corrosion, a wood rot, according to a presentation earlier in the year by architect Michael Mills, a partner of Mills Schnoering.
Project manager Jennifer Arnoldi explained that the roof had some surface corrosion. They had to scrape and prep the roof, but did not have to make any major repairs to the roof.
Some slate shingles were missing, and they went on to replace the ones missing on the building. An upper gutter had to get fixed on the building and a lower canopy lost its paint and did not have a lot of ponding (pooling water) in the gutter, so water had been draining pretty well from the canopy.
However, the northside balcony had biological growth and some of the wood was starting to rot. Arnoldi said that on the front side opposite the south elevation of the building there was an opposite problem which came from the sun.
The wood was splitting and opening up from so much sun hitting the wood. They had balcony rails replaced as part of the project.
The masonry (brick) was missing a lot of mortar (workable paste used to bind building blocks), due to drainage issues.
All the brownstone next to drainage downspouts always looked wet, add Arnoldi. There were stone repairs at areas in bad condition.
