NEWARK -- A faded Victorian mansion on Newark's Martin Luther King Boulevard has been reborn as an affordable home for up to a dozen small businesses.

The converted late-19th Century home, known as Newark Foundry Workspaces, is the first New Jersey project by a development trio who specialize in residential and commercial restorations and reuses, but until now have worked only in New York City.

"We thought, it's a beautiful place, why don't we renovate it, make people feel like they're at home when they go to work," Pietro Calibretta, one of the developers, said following a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.

The new tenants include a law firm, a company that remakes shipping containers into housing, and even a secular wedding chapel run by a husband and wife.

Calibretta, Allan Suarez and Robert Demetrio are partners in Newark Foundry created as a spinoff of Manhattan-based All Renovation Construction LLC for projects in New Jersey. The trio already have plans for another Newark reuse project involving the old Engine Company 10 firehouse on Astor Street.

The mansion and the firehouse are in the same High Street neighborhood, nicknamed for MLK Boulevard's former name. Suarez said he hopes the project will spur redevelopment of other relics of Newark's gilded past in the area, including the red brick Krueger Mansion at the corner of MLK and Court Street.

Mayor Ras Baraka hopes so, too. Baraka attended Monday's ribbon cutting, where he thanked the developers for sharing his vision of a renaissance for all of Newark's neighborhoods, beyond its booming downtown.

"I want to express my appreciation to all of the folks, especially these three men, who invested their attention, their money, their resources, their time, right here in Newark," Baraka said. "For believing in a vision that we need to make sure that we help other businesses, small, midsize, in the city, grow, and give them the same opportunity to have the same functional spaces as other folks have in the downtown area."

Newark Foundry bought the building for $375,000 from Lisa Hendricks Richardson, a lawyer and resident of the neighborhood, who said she used the mansion as the offices of what was, with three fellow African-American women, the largest black female law firm in the state.

"I couldn't maintain it," Richardson said of the mansion, where her firm remains as a tenant. "What they did is what I wanted to do."

Calibretta said the company put another $320,000 into restoring the building, which retains its original moldings, hardwood floors and even some original bathroom tiles and fixtures.

Tenants began moving in about year ago as individual spaces were renovated. The developers and city officials said there were no tax breaks or any other subsidies, though the Newark Community Economic Development Corporation helped market the space.

Office space for two to six employees starts at $800 a month, including utilities. Single "memberships" in the space start at $275 a month, granting individuals unlimited access to shared workstations, conference room, bathrooms with showers, and parking in back.

"Small-business friendly," said Siree Morris, the 34-year-old president of MCI, a property management and general contracting firm, who occupies Suite 303, which has the feel of an attic bedroom.

Morris was showing off his space to a prospective tenant, Shefali Raina of Clear Water Capital Investments, a New York City firm that buys and runs rental properties and is now looking for office space -- and investment opportunities -- in Newark.

And then there's the Little Chapel of Love, a secular bridal chapel on the second floor run by husband and wife Lance and Shinell Smith. He's an East Orange firefighter, and she's the acting South Orange municipal clerk, and both are licensed to perform marriages.



She is from Philadelphia and was familiar with Yerkes Wedding Salon in the City of Brotherly Love, and she suggested the couple open something like it. He came around to the idea during a trip to Las Vegas. The couple have performed two dozen weddings, mainly on nights and weekends, since opening in October.

"Our doors are open to everyone, every walk of life, every ethnicity, every religion," she said.

Her 75-year-old mother-in-law, Joann Smith, who worked for the City of Newark under Mayor Kenneth Gibson, had seen the Victorian house as a stately private residence in the 1950's, and later in decline.

"Back then it was a mansion, then it was down," Smith said. "Now it's up again."

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.