DeLong and Tim Schell, USA Architects & Planners’ construction administrator, recall seeing holes in the rubble masonry façade in which brick and concrete block were shoved for a quick patch, and steel was haphazardly fastened on the roof so it didn’t rain into the building. “It was obvious that during the stock house’s life, repairs were made in a practical sense and not necessarily by craftsmen,” Schell notes.
As construction began, more construction defects emerged. Schell explains: “We found the building was out of square by several inches, and the existing steel trusses—which were left exposed in the building— weren’t necessarily placed in a uniform manner from one end of the building to the other. This affected the roofing, fascia finishes and soffit along the front façade facing the street—an area everyone was going to see.”
Despite the challenges, the Redevelopment Authority was not deterred by the large price tag to restore and upgrade the building into a visitor center. “By the before and after pictures, you can see this was a definite fixer-upper,” Hanna says. “But we committed to doing this according to the Secretary of Interior standards even though we weren’t availing ourselves of the historic tax credits.”
The design team, too, was set on completing the project the “right way” and met with Bethlehem’s citizens to ensure the architects’ concept would adhere to the community’s vision. “There’s so much passion and emotion within the city because this was their livelihood and their parents’ and grandparents’ livelihoods; when Bethlehem Steel shut down, it really took everybody by the seat of their pants,” explains Paul Swartz, AIA, CEO of USA Architects & Planners and principalin- charge of the project. “There was a lot of community outcry to ensure that what we were trying to do honored Bethlehem Steel.”
Love for Lehigh Valley
As a firm, USA Architects & Planners seeks local materials for each of its projects. The stock house’s restoration led the design team to specify products quarried and manufactured in the Lehigh Valley, which consequently helped celebrate the stock house’s past.
The building’s rubble masonry façade consists of locally quarried stone. When the design team referred to the building’s oldest surviving drawings, which were from 1909, it found window and door openings had been infilled with the stone in places. When the openings were recreated, the recovered stone was reused in areas where the original stone was missing. Additional stone needed to complete the project was found in local quarries and matched to the original masonry.
A compatible mortar of hydraulic lime was used in repointing the building’s interior and exterior. Not only did the lime have to be a certain color and consistency, but it also required a specific temperature and lengthy curing time. Because much of the project was completed during cold-weather months, the masons had to be creative. “The masons erected a tent around the building as they were repointing, so the cold weather didn’t affect the hydraulic lime mortar they were using,” DeLong recalls. “It was really interesting once they ripped the tent down and you could see the shell. We kind of knew then this was going to turn into something really neat.”
Photos, unless otherwise noted: Penchick Photography
Recognition
The stock house and Bethlehem Steel complex won a 2013 Preservation Pennsylvania Award in the Industrial Category. Winners are recognized by Preservation Pennsylvania, a non-profit dedicated to the protection of historically and architecturally significant resources. “We’re very proud of this award because there are obviously a lot of industrial projects in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania that have been retrofitted,” says Tony Hanna, executive director of the Redevelopment Authority of the city of Bethlehem, Pa. “I think it underscored what a great job we all did on the building.”