Lansford to rebid train station
The engineer for the renovation work at the former Lehigh and New England train station in Lansford said Monday she is going to rebid the next round of work.
Bids for selective demolition of non-historical elements and electrical work were due Wednesday for the 1925 brick station building.
The building located along Dock Street served as a machine shop for 50 years after the railroad ceased using it in the 1960s. The previous owner, Ken Hill, covered historical elements and blocked over windows.
Lansford Borough voted on acquiring the building, which turns 100 this year, from Hill and his wife, Jeannie, in 2022.
The borough enlisted the help of Carbon Career and Technical Institute design and mechanical engineering students to do conceptual drawings of the station featuring market and food stands, gift shops and a museum.
The station could serve as a visitor center for the area, Council President Bruce Markovich has said. The borough attained a gaming grant to remove false walls and ceilings, remove blocks from the windows and doors and install new electrical, he said.
Bids were due Wednesday, but Joy Beers, a restoration architect working with the borough, said that she and her grant writer decided to re-advertise the project to ensure questions about the bid opening were addressed.
A legal notice that appeared in the Times News in early December did not state where the bids would be opened. The legal notice only stated that bids would be received by the engineer via email no later than 4 p.m. on Jan. 8, when they would be opened by the engineer.
Borough Code requires that the date, time and location of the bid opening be provided to bidders and other interested parties, upon request, and that they may be present for the opening.
The Times News requested the date, time and location of the bid opening last week, and a copy of all bids received.
Beers did not provide a location for the bid the opening, but agreed that is what the code required.
On Monday, Beers said in an email that she and her grant writer decided to re-advertise the project “to be certain that all points are being properly addressed.”
New dates have not been decided, she said.
Markovich could not be reached for comment Monday.