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This historic Washington Street building
in Newark should house graduate students
by 2008.
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Rutgers is soliciting innovative proposals from five firms for the redevelopment of 15 Washington St. in Newark. The university plans to convert the 17-story historic building into graduate student housing.
The building has been unoccupied since the School of Law-Newark and the School of Criminal Justice moved into the new Center for Law and Justice at 123 Washington St. six years ago. The neoclassical-style building has been owned by Rutgers since 1978. It was built in 1929 as a home to the American Insurance Company.
“We are pleased to be moving forward quickly to this next major step in development for the campus,” said Gene Vincenti, executive vice provost for administration in Newark. Vincenti said the university hopes to select a firm and negotiate a contract by the summer and to have work begin soon after. The project is scheduled for completion by August 2008.
The recent expansion of the campus population and the many developments in Newark have made the city increasingly attractive as a residential community. The campus’ third residence hall is under construction, with occupancy for 600 undergraduate students scheduled for August 2006. The Washington Street building will likely house apartments for 200 to 300 graduate students, some as large as three bedrooms. A particular challenge to the developers will be designing use of the main floor space known as the Great Hall, a 68-by-116-foot room with 30-foot ceilings.
Vincenti said that redeveloping 15 Washington St. into graduate student housing is the first of several phases that allows for the “building of an academic village that will address not just demand for student housing, but also continue to improve the image and environment of the state’s largest city.”
Rutgers-Newark has long been a major center of graduate education and enrolls about 4,000 graduate students in business, law, nursing, public administration, criminal justice and arts and sciences, in addition to more than 6,000 undergraduate students.
With a growing demand for housing on and adjacent to campus, the Washington Street location has been seen as one that would be particularly attractive for graduate housing. Among the benefits are its close proximity to downtown; to major institutions, such as the Newark Museum, The New Jersey Performing Arts Center and Riverfront Stadium; and to direct train links from the Broad Street station and the new light rail connection to Penn Station in Newark and New York City.
The Washington Street building features dramatic views of New York City and the entire metropolitan area. A well-known architectural landmark, the building was used extensively for the 1998 film “Rounders,” starring Matt Damon.
Prior to selecting the five developers, the university considered qualifications from 13 firms that responded to a nationwide request for qualifications. The committee was chaired by Vincenti and made up of members of Rutgers-Newark administration and the university’s central administration. The firms invited to submit proposals are Campus Apartments, Philadelphia; a partnership of Keating Development Co. of Philadelphia and Davis Brody Bond, LLP of New York City; Smithfield Properties, LLC of Chicago; American Campus Communities of Austin, Texas; and a partnership of Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, Inc. of Baltimore and Fidelco Realty Group of Millburn, N.J.
Vincenti said the project is a natural outgrowth of the university’s master plan for development, completed in 2003. That plan envisioned a dynamic, mixed-use academic village north of the central academic core at Rutgers-Newark and predicted a need for a significant increase in on-campus housing.
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