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20 WINTER 2025
Museum Parc, a mixed-u use e p pro roje ject ct t to o crea eate t a cam mpu pus s around
The Newark Museum of Art, will include 2 250 5 new apartme ment nts
and commercial space, plus a 4,000-square-foot, glass-encl clos o art and programming facility and other cultural components.
ed
Courtesy: Newark Museum/LMXD
CULTURE CAMPUS
Newark Museum update marks latest milestone
as $100 million mixed-use project takes shape around it
New Jersey’s oldest museum
has undergone a signifi cant
upgrade, solidifying its
commitment to serve as a dynamic
cultural hub for the region and
beyond. It also is considered the
cornerstone of the $100 million,
blended-use project that’s poised to
link two downtown neighborhoods.
Known as Museum Parc, the
ground-up development is rising
just south of The Newark Museum
of Art under a plan that calls for 250
mixed-income apartments across
two buildings, with ground-fl oor
retail and additional cultural spaces
such as a 4,500-square-foot glass-
enclosed gallery. The project along
Central Avenue is now about 50
percent constructed, its developers
say, as anticipation builds for its full
completion in 2027.
“It was really meant to complement
the museum,” said Jake Pine of
LMXD, which is developing Museum
Parc alongside MCI Collective and
MSquared. “The focus of the design
was to make it inclusive, to go along
with the mixed-income component,
so we are creating a muse between
two buildings. We wanted to feel
contextual with its surrounding area,
but not trying to be something that it’s
not. It is new construction.”
The Newark Museum of Art, which
sits on a 3.1-acre campus in the
city’s Washington Street and James
Street Commons Historic District,
By Rosa Cirianni
features the Learning & Engagement
Center, which recently underwent
an extensive $2.5 million renovation.
Plans to update the space, a former
YWCA in the late 1980s, initially
began in 2019 during the beginnings
of the larger Museum Parc project,
which will be connected to it via a
courtyard. No easy undertaking as
the Learning & Engagement Center
was designed in 1990 by the famed,
Princeton-based American architect,
Michael Graves, who died in 2015 and
designed more than 400 buildings
across the world including the Walt
Disney World Swan and Dolphin
hotel in Orlando and more than 2,000
everyday products.
Yet KSS Architects teamed with
Phelps Construction Group LLC
of Denville and AKF Group, a
member of WSP Global Inc., a New-
York based mechanical, electrical
and plumbing fi rm, and began
renovating the center in January
2025 to coincide with the beginning
of construction for Museum Parc.
Three out of the six fl oors in the
Learning & Engagement Center are
now open after receiving selective
alterations, renovations and repairs
to make way for even more visitors,
school fi eld trips, education classes,
studios, professional development,
summer programs, community
events and new generations of
patrons with airy spaces and
improved accessibility.