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NEWARK-Officials of the local campus of Rutgers University have narrowed the choices down to five development groups seeking to turn the school's long-vacant former law school building into apartments for graduate students. The finalists are the survivors of a group of 13 that responded to an RFP for the project last year.

"We hope to select a firm and negotiate a contract by the summer, and to have work begin soon after. Completion is planned for August 2008," says Gene Vincenti, executive vice provost for administration for Rutgers-Newark. That the project is finally moving forward is a development itself. The 17-story building at 15 Washington St. has been vacant for a half-dozen years, since the university moved its law school and school of criminal justice just up the street to a new building at 123 Washington St.

The initial plan was to team up with a private developer to turn the asset into a hotel and conference center, but the weak hotel market of the early 2000s and an inability to get funding ended that proposal. The five finalists for the project are Campus Apartments of Philadelphia; a partnership of Keating Development of Philadelphia and Davis Brody Bond of New York City; Smithfield Properties of Chicago; American Campus Communities of Austin, TX; and a partnership of Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse of Baltimore and Fidelco Realty of Millburn.

The neoclassical-style building is situated adjacent to the Newark Public Library, overlooking Downtown's Washington Park. Originally built in the late '20s as the headquarters for the American Insurance Co., it was acquired by Rutgers in 1978 to house the university's S.I. Newhouse Center for Law and Justice.

Final plans are expected to retain the building's signature lobby, the 116-ft by 68-ft Great Hall. Cost of the project hasn't been released, pending final design plans. A new Rutgers-Newark dormitory rising nearby, with space for 600 students, is carrying a price tag in excess of $50 million.

The redeveloped former law school building, meanwhile, is expected to provide apartments, some with as many as three bedrooms, for upwards of 300 grad students. "Like so many urban universities around the country, Rutgers-Newark is enjoying a renewed interest by graduate students in experiencing the cultural amenities of urban living," Vincenti says.

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Rutgers Will Turn Vacant Law School into Student Apartments

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