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NJPAC Issues RFEI for $100M MXD Tower
By Eric Peterson
Last updated: March 17, 2006 08:01am
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NEWARK-The New Jersey Performing Arts Center has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest for a proposed mixed-use tower that would be built on a 1.2-acre site opposite the arts and entertainment complex’s main entrance Downtown. The building site is part of NJPAC’s original site plan and NJPAC officials are looking to find a private developer to build it.

“Our mission, since the earliest days of planning, has been for the Arts Center to help create an around-the-clock environment in the Newark Arts District,” says Lawrence P. Goldman, NJPAC’s president and CEO. “The missing ingredient is market-rate residential and higher-end retail opportunities. After eight years of successfully operating this cultural facility, we are ready to build upon that by bringing living and commerce into this city. This is a complicated project, but it’s time.”

Completed in 1997 at a cost of $185 million, NJPAC features a 2,750-seat main auditorium and a 514-seat theater, as well meeting and conference space. The performance venues have attracted more than four million people in their first eight seasons. What NJPAC has in mind for Two Center Street, as the project is dubbed, is a total of at least 250 residences in low-, mid- and high-rise settings, one-fifth of which would be set aside for artists. The plan also calls for 30,000 sf of street-level retail and cultural uses and structured parking for more than 700 cars. NJPAC officials have put an estimated price tag of $100 million on the project.

The effort is part of an original plan for 16 Downtown acres, dating back to 1988, calling for construction of NJPAC and ancillary uses on three sites around it, including Two Center Street. The latter site currently contains a two-story building that would be demolished and a surface parking lot. Both NJPAC and the Two Center site are adjacent to a new light rail station slated to open this summer.

Besides the proposed site, two others remain for eventual development, situated between NJPAC and McCarter Highway. For Two Center Street, NJPAC officials say the hope to have a developer named by the end of this year, and to have the building completed by early 2010. According to a statement issued by NJPAC, “developers must have a demonstrable commitment to excellence in planning and design, an established record of financial stability and success, a record of integrity and trustworthiness and a basic sensibility in harmony with NJPAC’s multi-layered mission.”