NEWARK -- In what could be called a wall breaking ceremony, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka hoisted a sledgehammer and laid into a 4-foot-high section of cinder block wall during a ceremonial launch of a warehouse redevelopment project.

Dressed in a suit and hard hat, Baraka took several wacks at the demonstration wall, before finally breaking through, prompting cheers from dozens of city officials, developers and other onlookers inside the 108-year-old Newark Warehouse Company building on Edison Place.

Over the next year and a half, Newark-based developer Edison Properties will transform the vast concrete warehouse into a 456,000-square-foot commercial and retail center, just across Mulberry Street from the Prudential Center arena, and a few blocks from Newark Penn Station.

"It felt good," Baraka said of the pounding he gave on the wall, carrying the sledgehammer as a memento of the occasion. "It released some of the tension that builds up."

The warehouse conversion is yet another development or re-development project Baraka has helped launch as mayor, presiding over a building boom in the city's downtown section fueled by the ongoing economic recovery and, the mayor said, his friendly attitude toward business as a source of jobs and local economic growth.

Edison Properties will receive a 30-year tax abatement on the warehouse project worth $1 million, said Baye Adofo-Wilson, the city's director of economic and housing development.

Designed by global architects Perkins Eastman, the $80 million privately financed warehouse redevelopment project will feature modern, loft-style and penthouse office space on its six upper floors, with a rooftop green space offering views of Manhattan, Edison said. The building will be linked to the city's Newark Fiber optic cable network providing high-speed internet access.

The 1907 concrete warehouse, also known as the Central Graphic Arts Building, overlooks a broad expanse of parking spaces that Edison is in the early stages of redeveloping into a park to be named Mulberry Commons.

Baraka said Ironside and Mulberry Commons will anchor the rebirth of an area of the city's downtown between Broad Street and McCarter Highway, west of Raymond Boulevard. The redeveloped warehouse, he said, will be an ideal location for the kind of technology companies Newark is seeking to attract or is already nurturing at its multiple technology incubators.

Adofo-Wilson said it would be about 18 months before the first tenants of the redeveloped warehouse would move in.

On Tuesday, project participants and boosters gathered on a vast, vacant floor of the warehouse, listening to speakers as renderings of the redeveloped property appeared on video monitors.

Michael Sommer, Edison's executive vice president of development, called the project a "truly unique opportunity" for businesses seeking space, with the availability of low-cost, hi-speed internet service, as well as easy access to highways and mass transit.

"Since Edison's beginnings in Newark more than 60 years ago, the company has remained deeply committed to the city and its success," Sommer said in a statement. "We could not be happier to announce this groundbreaking project."

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