In planning its new 91,600-square-foot charter school in Trenton, NJ, Foundation Academies chose a path that would preserve the city’s past while looking toward its future. The new institute repurposes the nearly 100-year-old former Horsman Doll Factory into academic spaces and adds an expansion for a gymnasium, orchestra room, fitness room and other specialty spaces.
“If we continue to invest in our history and our present, we can maintain what has been while continuing to build on it, which is what this school stands for,” says Andre Moore, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Foundation Academies.
The 91,600 square meter project maintains the historic structure of the former doll factory while providing new on-site accommodation to better serve students and staff.
Photos courtesy Foundation Academy Collegiate
all stuck
The school is divided into two structures. The existing 40,000 square meter factory, with its heavy concrete structure and brick facades, is joined by a new steel frame building, clad in white fiber cement panels. Architect Michael Farewell says the new building was designed to look as if it had been removed from the existing building, like a dresser drawer.
“It’s literally like you took the [school’s] program in the city,” he says. “The interior fabric of the brick building, with its white walls, is extruded into the urban grid. We really liked the idea that within this brick shell of an old building, we moved the program to be visible, to be part of the community.”
Farewell worked with Foundation Academies and owner representative 22Beacon in the initial site selection. While the team was able to do some general site surveys, it wasn’t a deep dive.
“We weren’t really given full access to the building while it was being negotiated for sale,” Farewell says. “As a result of that, we didn’t really know what their condition was. We couldn’t do the kind of invasive forensic work on the slabs and the facade that we would normally do.”
Initial investigations suggested that the factory’s heavy concrete structure held up well enough over the years to be used as the bones of the building. Originally built as an industrial structure, the thick above-grade concrete slab foundation, concrete floor slabs, and strong 14-foot-tall columns provided more than enough support for the structural demands of a high school.
INTECH was selected as the general contractor in September 2024 and began pre-construction work. Abatement and demolition began in January 2025 and construction in March. The project is scheduled for substantial completion in June 2026.
Merging the existing structure with a steel frame presented structural and alignment challenges.
Courtesy of Farewell Architects
To the Unknown
Although the overall project was awarded under a design-bid-build contract, INTECH worked under an independent design-build package with its own structural engineer for the concrete structural rehabilitation. In the end, the existing structure required minimal repair, according to the company.
Although the structure was sound, the unknown condition of the brick facade proved to be a major challenge. “We didn’t know much when we went into the job,” says Jesse Chladil, project manager at INTECH. “We knew that the whole building [facade] it needed to be re-designated, but they didn’t do much exploratory work to develop a comprehensive overall restoration package. You had to get into a selective demo to really discover it. So once we were able to start to phase it out and get another consultant involved, we were able to clearly identify the scope and develop a plan from there.”
“We didn’t really know what their condition was. We couldn’t do the kind of invasive forensic work on the slabs and the facade that we would normally do.”
—Michael Farewell, Founder, Farewell Architects
Finally, it was determined that three of the four facades could be preserved. The north facade, where the old building would join the new one, was too deteriorated and had to be demolished. The rest of the brick facades would need to be rethought and some existing parapets rebuilt and others demolished.
The existing 17-foot-wide window sills proved to be one of the main challenges of the facade. Almost all lintels needed major structural repair, Chladil says.
To properly sequence the facade work, the lintel repairs had to come ahead of the facade restoration crews. “They were two separate contractors, so the timing of that was always difficult to manage.”
INTECH was able to create a playbook of the variety of conditions encountered and how to make the necessary repairs or restorations. “The big lift that was there basically came with a set of conditions so that when you meet [a certain] problem, please apply [a certain] detail,” he explains.
Throughout the process, an engineer worked ahead of the restoration crews to determine the condition of each brick before the work was done.
Designers had to wait to finalize information technology plans until demolition was complete and unsafe conditions were removed and surveys and assessments were completed.
Photo courtesy Foundation Academy Collegiate
“Our structural engineer had to set up a scaffold or a scissor lift to assess each of these different conditions on the property,” says Sriram Chintamaneni, 22Beacon’s project manager. “In the beginning, it was very coordinated so that they were always ahead of the contractor. But we quickly got to a point where we had enough typical details that while the contractors were busy with what the engineers had already assessed, the engineer could move them forward on the rest of the facade.”
Crews also faced unfamiliar conditions in an existing stair tower and two elevator shafts. Eventually, the existing stairs were too dilapidated and were redesigned as a mechanical shaft. Instead, stairs were added to the elevator shafts.
Although the existing concrete slabs were generally in good condition, the building had settled unevenly over the years, and crews had to do heavy resurfacing of each slab to level them. The existing roof slab was also in good condition, although the roof had to be completely replaced. The mechanical equipment of the roof had to be designed to be precisely placed over the existing structural columns. “We spent a lot of time scanning the existing rebar to make sure the anchor bolts that went into the top of these columns weren’t touching the rebar,” Chladil says.
A brightly lit, double-height entrance hall welcomes students and visitors, while stairs connect the space to classrooms on the second and third floors.
Photo courtesy of Intech Construction
something new
While one group of teams worked on the existing building, other teams worked on the new building. Once INTECH got to work on the project, it determined that the initial designs had placed the foundation of the new building 11 inches higher than the existing building. “It was difficult to know the exact elevation of the existing building until we actually did the demolition,” he says. “It ended up being a pretty simple solution to a problem that worried everyone when we first came across it.”
The new steel structure is supported by a slab-on-grade foundation system with separate footings. During the foundation work, some soil remediation was required due to contaminants from the old factory. As part of this effort, a vapor mitigation system was added under the base.
As the team had to work within the space constraints of the existing building, the new building opened up opportunities for more atypical and less repetitive spaces. The school is designed with the classrooms, laboratories, offices and other educational spaces of the existing building. The new structure houses a gymnasium, an auditorium, a dance studio, a gymnasium, an orchestra hall and spaces for other specialized uses.
“I’m still in awe of what the team has been able to accomplish in that time frame.”
— Andre Moore, Director of Operations and Finance, Foundation Academies
The two-story gymnasium, which can be reused as an auditorium or theater as needed, is located on the second floor and has the longest spaces in the building. “It was a huge coordination effort, figuring out how the ducts go through the armor and putting the lights in their places,” adds Chladil.
The longest truss was nearly 80 feet long, which was brought to the site in one piece and pulled a truck off the road right into the structure.
Most of the new building is clad in Equitone fiber cement panels, with most panels approximately 2 feet by 4 feet. The rear of the building, where the loading dock is located, uses a more standard and economical Hardie cladding.
Although the factory building retains the existing large windows to provide plenty of natural light, fewer windows were needed for the spaces in the new building. The gym is topped off by a system of opaque windows.
Throughout the project, the windows were a critical component in the schedule. Extensive work was required on the window openings in the existing building and the team had to strive to keep them on schedule for the delivery of custom windows manufactured in Lithuania. “We knew to have a chance to make it to the meet schedule, we had to pull through [the building] dried before winter. And that really came down to making sure the windows come in on time,” Chladil says.
During the project, the team also realized that fees could be an issue. However, INTECH was able to order windows in time. Similarly, steel from a Canadian mill was ordered ahead of any potential tariff issues. “We saw a decent amount of… letters from our suppliers [about rising tariffs]but we managed to avoid any of that,” says Chladil.
At the connection between the new and old buildings, a large glass cube marks the entrance. Adéu says that the design of the entrance plays with the transparency of the factory’s large windows. The three-story atrium houses an open staircase that connects both structures. “It’s the main backbone of the school,” he says. “All students enter through this transparent cube and then move into this atrium, which runs the entire width of the site.”
Despite a long list of unknowns that needed to be resolved amid a tight schedule, the project is currently slated for completion this summer. “I’m still in awe of what the team has been able to accomplish in that time frame,” says Moore.
