On Rector Street in downtown Newark, Cathedral House has spent much of its existence adapting to the evolving needs of the city.
Although workers originally constructed the building for diocesan use, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) later retrofitted it into an improvised arts education hub. Rooms shifted purpose over decades: a subterranean basketball court became a black box theater, while dancers, actors, and spoken-word poets rehearsed in spaces never engineered for arts training. On the building’s exterior, oversized typography designed by Paula Scher and Pentagram boldly announced its creative identity:
MUSIC. DANCE. THEATER. POETRY.
Today, remediation and selective dismantling are underway as NJPAC advances a comprehensive redevelopment of its campus. The master plan introduces the state-of-the-art Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center, hundreds of residential units, street-level retail, and new public green spaces.
Yet the transition along Rector Street is not merely a story of modern construction supplanting the old. It examines how a city builds for the future without treating its layered history as disposable.
A Building Made to Work
Creative resourcefulness defined Cathedral House’s history with NJPAC.
“In the basement, we rehabbed an existing basketball court into our black box studio,” said Tim Lizura, NJPAC’s Executive Vice President of Real Estate and Capital Projects. “You took what you had and adapted it.”
Over years of continuous use, the building became deeply meaningful to students, faculty, and administrative staff who brought the space to life.
“It was a significant physical space for the work that developed in that building,” said Dr. Sherri-Ann Butterfield, NJPAC’s Senior Vice President of Social Impact. “We have alumni and current and former staff as well for whom that was a place. That was their space.”
However, spatial and structural constraints ultimately placed a ceiling on what the facility could support. Cathedral House lacked modern sound attenuation. Dance instruction took place on floors without sprung subsurfaces. Load-bearing walls built for entirely different functions constricted the classrooms, prompting faculty to turn storage areas into makeshift offices.
Most critically, the physical footprint limited student capacity, cementing the need for a purpose-built facility.
Moving Arts Education to the Front
The shift from Cathedral House to the upcoming Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center represents a major strategic repositioning.
Where Cathedral House operated on the geographic perimeter—occupying what Dr. Butterfield describes as the “back of the house”—the Cooperman Center will stand prominently at the center of NJPAC’s expanding downtown campus.
“Cooperman allows us to be public-facing in a way that Cathedral House was not,” said Dr. Butterfield.
To ensure the new building directly reflects community needs, NJPAC engaged roughly 1,000 residents and partnered with local grassroots organizations to identify existing community assets and programming gaps.
“We can’t just build it and think people are just going to show up,” Butterfield emphasized. “This new building is coming. It is for you, and I need you to feel welcome in this space. It’s going to be new. It’s going to be shiny. It’s going to be beautiful. Community needs to understand that that’s what they deserve.”
What Remains: A Living Memory Wall
When a site changes purpose, what physical and cultural elements carry forward? At Cathedral House, the answer is intentional preservation.
Lizura confirmed that the building’s three-story front façade will remain intact, preserving Paula Scher’s typographic landmark on Rector Street. Behind the preserved wall, the grounds will be transformed into an accessible public park featuring a new permanent mural by acclaimed architect and artist Nina Cooke John, designer of Newark’s Harriet Tubman Monument.
The park is designed to tell a historical narrative spanning centuries:
- Indigenous Lenape Heritage: Commemorating the ancestral stewardship of the Lenni-Lenape across the Passaic River basin.
- Civic & Cultural Milestones: Documenting the civic movements, assemblies, and arts education eras hosted on the site.
- The Living Memory Wall: An adaptable architectural installation designed to incorporate new oral histories and community narratives as the neighborhood evolves.
“Even if the physical building is not there, then we have to give honor to what was there before,” Butterfield said.
From Commuter Campus to 24/7 Neighborhood
The physical evolution of Cathedral House reflects a broader shift across Downtown Newark. For decades, the central business district was geared toward suburban commuters entering the city during office hours and departing by dusk. Sustaining local commercial districts requires continuous residential density.
“There is no ability to sustain retail without people living here,” noted Lizura.
By integrating approximately 350 residential apartments, neighborhood-scale retail, public plazas, and a restored extension of Mulberry Street, the campus is evolving into a cohesive neighborhood.
For Dr. Butterfield, that localized investment is additive rather than extractive, ensuring Newarkers find cultural fulfillment and daily amenities within their own city limits.
“We’re not pulling back from what we already do in the city because we’re putting up this new space,” Butterfield said. “It is additive. It is not subtracting. We have to give them more places of joy.”
