Award of Merit - Adaptive Reuse

The Union Building

The $7 million Union Building project transformed a long-vacant, decrepit 10-story office building into 63 luxury apartments and a first floor of shops and offices. But its bigger impact is as a clear symbol of the downtown redevelopment of Newark, N.J.

Once synonymous with urban decay, Newark in the last decade has become a city on the rise. An economic upswing has meant a greater need for quality housing.

The jury noted the project's role in the revitalization. "It's helping to turn downtown Newark into a place where people want to both work and live," the judges said.

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To appreciate the magnitude of the conversion led by Del-Sano Contracting of Union, N.J., the primary contractor, it's important to understand the depth of the building's deterioration. Among the obstacles the construction team had to overcome were: a cracked and warped roof; a partially collapsed courtyard façade; badly damaged floors, ceilings, and walls throughout the building thanks to 30 years of exposure to water and ice; and three elevators rusted in place in the basement.

The 100-year-old building, abandoned for the previous 30 years, was in such bad shape that worker safety was a constant concern. Before work could begin, crews had to clear the building of asbestos and shore up an exterior entrance sidewalk on the verge of collapse. But although the building was only a shell of its former self, it was listed on the Federal and State Registries of Historical Sites - triggering preservation requirements.

But there were reasons to be optimistic about the project. For example, the openness of each floor's 7,500-sq.-ft. span made them adaptable to creative apartment configurations. And within the building - obscured by decades of decay and debris - were a few lost treasures. For instance, the project team was able to retain and reuse some of the marble wainscot, along with much of the porcelain tile floor. The team restored and reglazed 274 windows and brought them up to code. It also restored or preserved portions of four large skylights and salvaged bronze elevator surrounds.

In much of the building, however, the only course of action was to tear down the old and rebuild. This was the case with the 10-story, wrought-iron fire escape, which the team replaced with an eight-story enclosed stair tower.

Another delicate job unfolded on the eighth floor and roof parapet, where a galvanized sheet metal cornice had deteriorated severely enough to expose the angle-frame skeleton. The team had to create new cornices replicated from a section of the original metal. The job also entailed installing new plumbing, electrical, and mechanical systems. Before team members could bring building materials to any part of the structure, they first had to reinforce the floor to prevent collapse.

Today, the finished product showcases a renaissance of sorts - retaining many charming, century-old architectural details and at the same time becoming modern and useful. "It produces an elegant residential building as a result," a juror said.