Clarke Caton Hintz

Clarke Caton Hintz is a Trenton, New Jersey firm combining architecture, planning and landscape architecture in one practice. Its work runs heavily to public and institutional clients: municipal buildings, libraries, courthouses, affordable housing and downtown redevelopment planning across New Jersey and the surrounding region. Historic preservation is a core capability rather than a side offering, which is how the firm ended up on the restoration of Hoboken’s 1897 main library, a building listed on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The current phase there rebuilds the Park Avenue stair, adds an accessible mezzanine lift and hides mechanical upgrades inside new period-appropriate millwork.

John Clarke opened the practice in Trenton in 1979 on a simple premise: what gets learned in architecture should inform what gets decided in planning, and the reverse. Nearly five decades on, the office at 100 Barrack Street still runs that way, with architects, planners, landscape architects and interior designers in the same studio and five partners splitting the work.

The planning side is the part that ends up in court. Partner Mary Beth Lonergan has been appointed Special Court Master in 44 Mount Laurel affordable housing matters before the New Jersey Superior Court, and spent eight years as Chief of Housing Services at the state Council on Affordable Housing before joining the firm in 2003. Principal Emeritus Philip Caton, who led the planning practice from the founding until 2023, served as a court-appointed special master in litigation involving more than 50 municipalities. Routine work includes master plans, zoning and subdivision ordinances, redevelopment studies, resiliency and floodplain plans, board application reviews and expert testimony.

Architecture leans public. The built portfolio includes the Ocean County Justice Complex, the restoration of Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, the Bergen County Rowing Center at Riverside County Park, a new dormitory for the Hun School of Princeton, the Recreation and Health Sciences Center at William Paterson University, an Automotive Technology Center, and the Garden State Equality headquarters. Preservation credits run to Lambert Castle and its carriage house, Morven in Princeton, the Hunterdon County Courthouse and jail, and the Roebling complex redevelopment. Glassboro Town Square is the clearest example of the planning and landscape groups working the same ground as the architects.

Credentials are spread across disciplines rather than concentrated. Two principals carry FAIA, LEED-accredited professionals sit through the architecture group, planners hold AICP certification and New Jersey Professional Planner licenses, and the landscape side is ASLA and RLA credentialed. A dedicated BIM manager and a director of information services maintain Revit and CAD standards across the office. Sustainability is framed as the underpinning of the whole practice, covering materials, energy systems, green infrastructure, resiliency and redevelopment, and the firm ties its preservation work directly to that commitment rather than treating the two as separate offerings.