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Newark Public Schools will pay over $300 million over 30 years for its new trade high school — but after many delays, the gym and auditorium may not be finished when it opens this fall.
The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is expected to welcome students in September, per an amended lease agreement that extended the deal from 20 to 30 years and was approved by the district’s Board of Education last month. But the deadline for the developer to finish those parts of the school isn’t until the middle of 2026.
The district also has the option to purchase the building for $1,000 at the end of the 30-year lease, according to the revised agreement obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.
The amended lease agreement comes after the developer of the property and Summit Assets CEO Albert Nigri promised last fall that the entire school facility would be finished by the start of the upcoming school year.
When the lease for the new trade high school was first signed by the district in 2021, NPS agreed to a $160 million, 20-year lease. The following year, Superintendent Roger León announced the opening of the new trade high school in the city’s East Ward at an invite-only groundbreaking ceremony. He touted the school — the first of its kind in the district — as an opportunity for students to fast-track their technical careers and earn a contract to work with the district.
It was originally scheduled to open in the fall of 2022. But stop-work orders issued by the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development over wage complaints and changes in contractors have delayed the project.
The district’s communications director Paul Brubaker did not respond to questions from Chalkbeat about the project’s setbacks, how the district plans to pay the lease for the school, or its reasoning for extending the lease agreement. Nigri did not respond to calls seeking comment.
The Newark School of Architecture and Interior Design is set to focus on three trades — plumbing, electricity, and HVAC — and allow students to study architecture and interior design. The curriculum will also give students a high school diploma and a license for trade work, district officials have previously said.
The new school is housed at the former St. James Hospital building that has stood vacant for years in the middle of the city’s Ironbound neighborhood. When it opens, the school will enroll 240 ninth grade students and add a grade level each year. Payments to Nigri, the property’s landlord and developer, are set to begin when the school opens this fall.
New high school delayed amid pay complaints
The latest version of the amended lease, approved by the school board in May, includes two new deadlines for the completion of the school.
By Aug. 1, 2025, the base of the school building must be completed, which includes new walls, roofs, and windows, elevators, restrooms, a courtyard, and landscaping. By June 1, 2026, the newly constructed gym and auditorium must be completed and the building must be finished, according to the lease amendment.
Those deadlines are later than those in the first amendment to the lease approved by NPS in August 2024, which were for the base of the school building to be completed by Jan. 9, the new gym and auditorium to be finished by July 30, and the building to be completed by Sept. 1.
The amended lease also extends the deal from 20 to 30 years and bumps up the total lease to $295,979,990 over 30 years. The district must also pay a total of $20 million in additional payments to Nigri between year two and year six and year 26 and year 30 of the lease.
Union workers at the high school’s construction site also encountered poor working conditions that were making their jobs unsafe and many were being paid late or in cash. That resulted in the union filing wage complaints with the state.
In September 2022, the New Jersey Department of Labor issued stop-work orders to Summit Assets as well as the former general contractor and an ex-subcontractor. That order halted work on the site for months before Nigri hired a new contractor and subcontractor.
Days later, dozens of union workers showed up to a district school board meeting demanding that León intervene after they were forced out of work and owed pay. León addressed laborers’ complaints and reiterated the district’s plan to open the school in September 2023.
In October 2024, the Department of Labor issued a second stop-work order on the site and to the new contractors and subcontractors of the project. Although the work subsequently resumed, district leaders have not addressed the project’s delays or issues related to worker pay.
Instead, the district began to advertise a fall 2025 opening date, and this spring, it opened up enrollment to the school. Brubaker did not respond to a request for comment about the district’s contingency plan if the landlord fails to deliver part of the building by Aug. 1.
State remains responsible for new school construction in Newark
During a May 2021 public hearing on the project, former assistant school business administrator Jason Ballard said that leasing a high school building is more affordable than building a new high school, which he said costs an average of $134 million. That’s less than half of what the district will pay on its lease for the new trade school, based on construction plans in other New Jersey cities.
The Schools Development Authority is the state agency responsible for paying construction projects in Newark and 30 other low-income school districts. According to its 2022 biannual report, the cost per square foot for a high school project was $369 at that time.
The agency’s largest and most expensive construction project is Perth Amboy High School, which opened its doors last fall and cost $284 million to add room for nearly 3,300 students.
Over the years, the agency has promised the district it would pay for school repairs and provide new buildings. But despite efforts to address these challenges, including the allocation of $18 million in state funding for building upgrades over the last three fiscal years, the district estimates that it would need more than $2 billion to repair and update all schools.
The Newark school district has identified 33 out of its 64 total schools that need replacing and dozens more that need renovations. The state agency last summer promised to replace 13 of Newark’s oldest buildings, but the deal still leaves out 20 schools that need replacements. The state agency also said it would spend nearly $153 million to build a new University High School and relocate Hawthorne Avenue Elementary School, but the plan is still in its early stages.
In 2023, the Schools Development Authority purchased the former University Heights Charter School building for $15.5 million and transferred it to the district to fulfill its promise to provide a new elementary school, now known as the Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
Jessie Gómez is a reporter for Chalkbeat Newark, covering public education in the city. Contact Jessie at jgomez@chalkbeat.org.
