Situated on a 12-acre site on the Newark riverfront, NJPAC is a 250,000-square-foot facility housing the 2,750-seat Prudential Hall and the 514-seat Victoria Theater. The Arts Center also is the home of Theater Square Grill, an elegant, three-and-a-half star restaurant, as well as Calçada, an outdoor café open to the public during late spring and summer. Completing the NJPAC public spaces are The Chase Room, which doubles as a rehearsal and performance space; The Parsonnet Room, a beautifully decorated donors' lounge; a Community Room; and the Rotunda Gallery, which includes a bar and reception area high atop the NJPAC entryway.

The Designer
NJPAC was designed by Barton Myers of Los Angeles, whose firm, Barton Myers Associates, has earned an international reputation for excellence in architectural design with projects ranging from residential homes to large urban developments. Among the firm's recent projects are the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Cerritos, California; the Portland Center for the Performing Arts in Portland, Oregon; the Art Gallery of Ontario Stage III Expansion in Toronto, Ontario; the Joseph E. Seagram Museum in Waterloo, Ontario; and the Scripps/UCSD Ocean Atmosphere Research Facility in La Jolla, California.

According to New Stage for a City: Designing the New Jersey Performing Arts Center: "NJPAC is a welcome addition to the 19th-century heritage of Newark, a city that was founded by English settlers in 1666 and still has enough scattered red-brick buildings to remind one of a Victorian city in Britain. Myers built on this tradition of picturesque irregularity, and his office produced a report on historic Newark to show how the Center's materials and massing would complement established landmarks and enliven the streets."

For New Jersey and Beyond
NJPAC was designed to be "not just in Newark, but of Newark," literally one step off the street, not distanced from the heart of the City. Theater Square, NJPAC's outdoor public plaza, was designed to provide a continuum of Newark's existing open green spaces from Military Park to the Newark Riverfront.

In a 1996 article, NJPAC President and CEO Lawrence P. Goldman told The Star-Ledger: "Our primary goal of the design was to make a statement that cities can be wonderful places - positive fun." Added Gail Thompson, former NJPAC Vice President of Design and Construction: "We wanted a building that would look open and inviting...[one] that welcomed people and brought communities together."

Architect Myers summed it up in the same article: "[What] sets NJPAC apart is what it doesn't have. This is not a theater such as we know about, a solemn temple to the arts where the dress code is black-tie and the etiquette is stiff. This is a celebration of people, community and urban life. Sure, we'll make art and witness it, but we'll do it in an entertaining way, a way that suits New Jersey."

"(Arts Centers) are so often separated from the urban fabric, set back on plazas, literally elevated above people's daily lives. Broadway theaters, or those of the West End in London, give the opposite impression, and that's the experience we're looking for. NJPAC should be inviting, entertaining, festive. You should have fun. It's a place to indulge your fantasies and to meet people, a place where you should be able to feel good either in jeans or in black tie."