Here’s a recently opened apartment building in the city of Newark, New Jersey:

Here’s the whole site almost finished:

Let me say this: I would never have been able to guess what this had previously been myself. But my guesses would be hotel, hospital, or simply an old apartment building remodeled. I mean, what other type of structure could possibly look like this?

The pre-remodel image might give someone a hint:

Key here is that the largely windowless exterior in the old image is original to the building, not a result of windows being bricked over. And the structure dates to the 1920s.

Factory?

…

Parking garage.

Vertical, fully-automated parking garage!

Here’s a review of the apartment building with some of the building’s history. It was abandoned for decades, but like a lot of lovely, solid old buildings in cities coming out of a slump, it was there for adaptation and reuse. Here’s the developer’s own description of the project.

The exterior was cladded, windows were added, a new structure was built on one side, and of course the entrance was revamped. But it’s truly the same structure, and while the apartment layouts are probably a bit unusual, the inside of a vertical garage isn’t really all that hard to carve up into units.

This is one of the coolest building conversions I’ve ever seen. I learned about it because someone originally from New Jersey, at my conference last weekend, had actually seen it. You never know what a chat with another land-use and architecture nerd will turn up!

I want to make one other point: the building is art deco, though only the middle ornamental bit is really art deco. Otherwise it’s pretty much just a tall box, especially after the recladding. But all it takes to add some visual interest is that design bit in the middle. It doesn’t really take much to turn a building from “ugly generic box” to something with style. And often minimal ornamentation is more attractive than busy, over-designed facades.

Related Reading:

What Do You Think You’re Looking At? #24

Under The Hood In The Neighborhood

A Magnificent Liquor Store in High Bridge, NJ

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