A recharge cycle is one hour when you're not already capped. I guess they didn't want people reading the shorter/clearer "per hour" and assuming that might continue past cap or operate independently of when the tick comes in.
Possibly in the future the "recharge cycle" could be something other than the current 1 hour. A guild could have a shorter recharge cycle as a benefit (kind of like shortening building construction time), or there could be some event building boost which would reduce the recharge cycle. If Inno introduces these kinds of things in the future, they won't have to go back and change the "per hour" description on all those buildings.
Inno having foresight? They'd have to first get past the greedy end of their nose.
