‘Smart Growth’ In Newark: Early Learning Center Earns Award

NEWARK, NJ — The Maher Charitable Foundation recently received a 2023 Smart Growth Award from New Jersey Future for leading design and construction on the $17 million Clinton Hill Early Learning Center in Newark’s South Ward. The award honors the best development projects across the state with the “environment and communities in mind.”

The center is located on a site that had been designated to be a high school, but which had been vacant for two decades. A group of 48 infants and toddlers and 150 three and four-year-olds receive early education at the center, helping to prepare them for future academic success. Read More: 2 New Learning Facilities Will Boost Newark Students

According to the foundation, it partnered with several other organizations on the project:

• The City of Newark, which supported the sale of the property and its redevelopment
• Clinton Hill Community Action, a community development corporation in the South Ward focused on community-led revitalization that manages the center.
• Two early childhood education providers – Clinton Hill Community & Early Childhood Center, Inc. and La Casa de Don Pedro – who have formed a new partnership to create a seamless zero-5 educational opportunity for neighborhood children eligible for Early Head Start and New Jersey’s high quality PreK
• DIGroup Architecture, the designers of the building
• Donnelly Construction, project managers who led the construction, and Dresdner Robbin, the project’s engineers

“The Clinton Hill Early Learning Center reaffirms the foundation’s fundamental belief that all children deserve early care and education in a high-quality, beautiful setting – close to their homes – where they can be nurtured and grow into successful learners from their earliest educational experiences,” said Brian Maher, founder and chair of the Maher Charitable Foundation.

“This award, and the building it acknowledges, is a signal to the rest of the state that beautiful, carefully planned redevelopment of disinvested spaces can serve as the catalyst for revitalization across New Jersey,” Maher added.

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