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Rutgers-Newark is preparing to convert the former law school building at 15 Washington St. into student apartments.

(Tim Farrell/The Star-Ledger)



NEWARK — Time has not been kind to 15 Washington St.

The once-elegant skyscraper that first graced the Newark skyline in the late 1920s, has been collecting dust for more than a decade.

Inside, wires hang from the ceilings, holes are punched through the crumbling walls and the cork floors are in shambles. Vandals who scaled the facade and pushed through the windows have left the historic brass chandeliers bent and broken.

After years of being closed, the building’s air is thick with dust and a damp cold has settled into the 17 dark floors.

Standing beneath the towering 15-foot windows in the building’s vast "great hall," Antonio Calcado says it is time to bring one of Newark’s iconic skyscrapers out of mothballs.

"This room will be restored back to exactly what it was," said Calcado, Rutgers vice president of university facilities and capital planning. "What really needs to be restored is the beauty of the building back to its 1929-30 standard."

Rutgers University plans to soon begin transforming the skyscraper into student housing. When the $85 million project is completed in 2015, the historic building will be home to nearly 400 undergraduate and graduate students.

Rutgers-Newark is preparing to convert the former law school building at 15 Washington St. into student apartments.

Rutgers-Newark’s chancellor will live in a two-story penthouse apartment. Other parts of the building will be turned into meeting and performance spaces open to the community.

It will be the third act for 15 Washington St., which was built as the showplace headquarters of the American Insurance Co. in the late 1920s and later served as home to Rutgers-Newark’s law school.

When the law school moved out in 2000, Rutgers officials said the building would find new life as a Marriott hotel and conference center. But the financing for that deal fell through and Rutgers failed for years to find the money to fund other plans for the space.

"Development is never easy," Calcado said. "It just took a lot of machinations, a lot of thoughts and a lot of ideas. The university realized it has a tremendous asset that was just withering away."

Under the new plan, Rutgers is partnering on the renovation project with the New Brunswick Development Corp., a nonprofit, private developer known as Devco.

Rutgers and Devco will enter into a complex agreement in which each side will own parts of the building in order to capitalize on available state funding. Rutgers will pay for part of the renovation with a $10.75 million state higher education grant, while Devco will secure $13 million in state tax credits, according to the agreement.

Devco will take out a mortgage to fund most of the rest of the renovation costs, which Rutgers will pay back over time using housing fees collected from students living at the site. Rutgers expects to eventually buy back Devco’s portion of the building, according to the deal.

But the complex plan has already hit its first snag. The Rutgers board of governors voted this month to increase the project’s budget by $14 million, bringing the total to $85 million, because of an abundance of asbestos and other environmental problems found in the building.

After eight months of cleanup, Rutgers officials said they are ready for construction to begin.

The 263,000-square-foot renovation will include space for 370 students in a range of apartment styles, including some with views of Manhattan. Outgoing Syracuse University President Nancy Cantor, who is due to become Rutgers-Newark’s chancellor next month, will live in a 3,600-square-foot residence on the 16th and 17th floors as one of the perks of her new job.

The vast marble-lined hall on the building’s first floor, which once served as the "counting hall" where American Insurance’s customers paid their premiums, will remain an open space. It may be open to the public as a performance space, Rutgers officials said.

"We’re talking about having some collaborative efforts between Rutgers-Newark and community arts groups," said Peter Englot, who is joining Rutgers as one of the new chancellor’s chief deputies. "This is one of the grandest spaces in Newark."

The neo-classical building, located between the Newark Public Library and the Newark Museum, was designed by John and Wilson Ely, the same father-son architectural firm that designed Newark City Hall and the National Newark Building on Broad Street.

The architects designed 15 Washington St. with a classically inspired entrance with columns facing Washington Park. The building’s limestone and brick tower is capped by a roof-top cupola.

American Insurance was eventually acquired by Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., which donated the building to Rutgers when it moved its offices out of Newark. Rutgers made the building the home of the S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice, named after the founder of Advance Publications, the owner of The Star-Ledger.

The building made its way into movies and television shows over the years. A scene from the "The Sopranos" was filmed out front, and the interior of the building served as the fictional law school in the 1998 Matt Damon film "Rounders," Rutgers officials said.

By the time Rutgers moved out in 2000, the aging building was best known among law students for trapping people in its chronically malfunctioning elevators.

Rutgers officials promise the newly renovated interior will be state of the art, while still maintaining the marble walls, brass-lined mail chute, historic windows and other classic elements of the building’s past.

"The real impact of the building is going to be the impact of 400 people here 24 hours a day," Englot said.

Residents of the neighborhood said they are pleased to see the historic building finally find a new purpose.

"People are happy we have one less vacant building in the area. It looks like progress," said William Chappel, a member of the Historic James Street Commons Neighborhood Association.

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