Former retail landmark transformed

An historic department store building that closed its doors and has been empty for 30 years — long enough for a tree to start growing inside it — has been given a brand new lease on life.



Built in 1901, the 400,000-sq.-ft. Hahne & Company building in downtown Newark, New Jersey, has been transformed into a mixed-use development whose retail centerpiece will be the city’s first Whole Foods Market. Scheduled to open in March, the grocery store will occupy 30,000 sq. ft. of the available 75,000 sq. ft. of ground floor retail space.



The building will also feature a campus bookstore operated by Barnes & Noble, and a restaurant by celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, operator of the famed Red Rooster in Harlem.



The $174 million building redevelopment was a collaboration between Prudential Financial, L+M Development Partners, and The Goldman Sachs Group, in partnership with Citi Community Capital, and Rutgers University.



The restored building also features an arts and cultural center operated by Rutgers University-Newark. The 50,000-sq.-ft. facility, designed by KSS Architects, fosters creative collaboration, and features state-of-the-art learning spaces, including a 3D printing studio, a photographic portrait studio, video production teaching facilities, smart classrooms, and galleries. The space will also serve as the new home for Rutgers’ Department of Arts, Culture and Media.



In addition to retail, commercial and community space the development includes 160 new apartments — 64 of which are set aside as affordable homes for low-income and working families.



The Hahne & Company building was the first commercial building in Newark designed specifically as a department store. Opened in 1901, the Art Deco-styled store was the company’s flagship and boasted a spectacular four-story atrium topped by a glass skylight, sweeping grand staircases with elaborate, wrought iron banisters, and working fireplaces.



In 1987, Hahne’s was sold to May Department Stores Co., owner of Lord & Taylor, and the building has remained vacant since then. According to a report by The Record, when contractors went into the building, they found a tree growing inside the former once-elegant store.