Lansford Borough hopes to bring in a contractor to continue renovation work on the former Lehigh and New England train station this year.

The borough acquired the 1925 brick building several years ago from Ken and Jeannie Hill, who operated a machine shop there for 50 years after the railroad ceased operating in the 1960s.

Carbon Career and Technical Institute design and mechanical engineering students did conceptual drawings of the historic station featuring market and food stands, gift shops and a museum room.

The station, which will turn 100 years old in 2025, could serve as a visitors’ center for the area, Bruce Markovich, council president, has said.

The borough already hosts one popular attraction, the No. 9 Coal Mine and Museum, just down the street from the station.

The borough appointed Joy Beers of Beers Engineering of Lehighton, as project engineer for the station restoration. Beers, who is a restoration architect, previously served as an alternate borough engineer in 2021.

The borough acquired a gaming grant to do selective demolition, such as removing false walls and ceilings, removing concrete blocks from original windows and doors, and new electrical service, Markovich said.

The borough has about $84,000 in grant funding to work with on this portion of the project, after engineering fees, advertising and other costs, he said. The original grant was for $95,970, Markovich said.

Bids for the demolition and electrical are due Jan. 8, he said, but as 2024 wound down, the borough had received no concrete bids — just a lot of questions from potential bidders.

Markovich thought the issue may be with the scale of the project, which may be too small for larger firms and too taxing for smaller companies with fewer resources to deal with paperwork related to the grant and prevailing wage, he said.

A number of people from different railroad preservation societies offered to do some of the work for free, Markovich said, but the borough can’t use the grant money to get a dumpster.

The borough may seek a matching state Historical Preservation grant, if the bids come too high, he said. The borough would use the existing grant for the matching funds, Markovich said.