Foundation Academies Repurposes a Former Doll Factory to Create a New High School

By Anne Levin | Architectural photography by Brian Rose

With its middle and elementary schools crammed into one building and its high school in another, Trenton’s Foundation Academies was running out of room.

The charter school founded in 2007 is an acknowledged success. Graduates, who are chosen by lottery, are routinely accepted into four-year colleges — Ivy League and otherwise. Administrators of the school have long wanted to expand the 1,000-plus student body, giving more Trenton children a chance to take advantage of the rigorous curriculum.

On August 30, that dream officially became a reality. A new 91,000-square-foot high school at 350 Grand Street in the city’s Chambersburg neighborhood — the site of the former Horsman Doll Factory — began welcoming students after a project that came in under budget and right on time.

The $55 million campus is a marriage of old and new. Where workers once created “Dolly Rosebud,” “Baby Dimples,” “Thirsty Walker,” and other porcelain dolls, students are tackling state-of-the-art technology in science labs, art classrooms, and maker spaces. They are studying dance in a mirrored studio with sprung floors, and practicing string instruments in a soundproofed music room next door. Windows that were boarded up for decades in the old factory have been rebuilt and replaced, letting light stream in again.

“There is an abundance of natural light,” says Foundation’s Chief Advancement Officer Genevieve King. “These are teenagers. If you lack natural light, it actually turns off the receptive centers in their brains. The factory had big windows and was set up for open spaces, and we’ve taken advantage of that.”

It was light, in fact, that helped convince CEO Sheria McRae that Farewell Architects of Princeton was the right firm for the job.

“We were chosen on the basis of work we’d done,” says principal Michael Farewell. “Sheria ended up by saying, ‘You understand how light works in a building.’ They hadn’t even selected a site at that point. We looked at several, on a very compressed timeline because they wanted to get in in a couple of years. The Horsman site was decrepit and falling apart — really grim. But we all saw the potential of 60,000 square feet of usable space, high ceilings, and wonderful windows that could be made into a glorious space.”

Interior of the former doll factory before the renovation. The building became vacant around 1993. (Photo courtesy of Farewell Architects)

The Horsman Doll Factory once employed more than 800 people, most of whom lived within walking distance of the block-long complex. Built in 1937, it was once considered the largest doll factory in the U.S. according to Preservation New Jersey, which put the property on its Endangered list in 2003. Doll-making ceased at the site in the 1960s, and it became vacant around 1993.

The building’s unique structural system of “mushroom columns,” which rise up to a cap and support a flat slab above, was revolutionary in its time.

“We saw an opportunity to have a contrasting structure that would begin to almost have a dialogue with this artifact of a place,” says Farewell. “This factory was almost a community center, with people from all over the world working on dolls which were sewn, assembled, and painted. It was a real melting pot of cultures that reflected a moment in Trenton’s history. It was important to recognize that.”

Interior after the renovation. 

Two smaller structures on the site were demolished to make way for the new building’s circulation core and two-story gymnasium. An amphitheater and benches outside the entrance are designed to appeal not just to students, but to community residents as well.

“We wanted to make something that is open to the site, and visible to the city,” says Farewell. “It is kind of in contrast to the factory itself, which was walled off. This is open. It’s a more transparent, engaging place.”

The school colors of blue and yellow are visible throughout the new building. Organizing the space is a royal blue staircase and three-story atrium.

From left: Architect Michael Farewell with Farewell Architects staff members Ashton Amspacker, Matt Celeste, and Sahasra Kuravarapu. (Photo courtesy of Farewell Architects)

“The entire student body and faculty move up the staircase, getting access to all of the programs,” says Farewell. “A big sort of racetrack around the inside gives access to all of the classrooms.”

Flexibility was key to the design, allowing spaces to serve multiple purposes and keep pace with technological developments. “From the grand entrance, you can see right up to the third floor,” says King. “From this initial main spine, you can see into the media and tech center, and very easily veer off into the enrichment wing. The idea was for students to feel as though this ability to engage their whole selves was accessible to them.”

The gymnasium doubles as an assembly space, which can seat up to 550 people for a concert or graduation. The regulation basketball court can be subdivided. Acoustics and lighting are state-of-the-art.

Among Farewell’s previous educational projects are buildings for Princeton Charter School and The Lawrenceville School. Foundation Academies presented a new kind of challenge and reward.

“Getting to work with people who were such visionaries, building something that will change people’s lives — that’s the compelling thing,” he says. “And there was this opportunity to save and revive this wonderful building with a history. It was a big challenge to bring it back, and give that vitality back to the space while meeting the social and education goals. That’s a wonderful opportunity.”

The new building offers more than double the space of Foundation Academies’ old high school, which was located at Grand and Cass streets and will now house the middle school. The building that the middle and elementary grades shared on West State Street is now the elementary school.

“What we had just wasn’t enough,” says King. “We didn’t have a library for the elementary kids. We are K-12, the only one [charter school] that is. So we wanted three buildings for the three schools. All of what we have now just wasn’t possible with the two buildings. When Sheria became the CEO in 2022, she started off her tenure by saying this was going to happen. It has been her vision for four years.”

Construction was financed through a public bond. The Maryland firm 22Beacon, which specializes in charter schools, led the project.

“Because we have a financial track record, and we own our West State building — which is rare for charters — we got permits from the city almost overnight. That had really never happened before,” says King. “Nobody was opposed to this project. We knocked on doors in the neighborhood, and everyone was for it. Bond subscribers were all for it. We were 10 times oversubscribed within 13 minutes.”

“A lot of our leaders grew up in Trenton, and knew this building was dilapidated, abandoned, and a dangerous space that needed a lot of environmental remediation,” King continues. “Our construction team, InTECH, who were like a dream come true, said they had never transformed a porcelain factory into a school building. In terms of innovative projects, this is up there.”

For more about Foundation Academies, visit foundationacadamies.org.

2026 Senior Graduation. (Photo courtesy of Foundation Academies)