Newark Symphony Hall turns 100 in 2025 and as the centennial approaches, the storied venue in the state’s largest city is pursuing a $50 million capital improvement campaign to revitalize and restore the landmark. It moved closer to that goal last week with the addition of $2.75 million.

The new funding for the effort, announced Sept. 2, comes from fellow Newark anchor institution Prudential Financial and from the Mellon Foundation. The former contributed $2 million for the renovation project, while the latter’s $750,000 will go toward programming for NSH.

“Newark Symphony Hall is a community pillar and long-time partner,” said Prudential Financial Vice President of Inclusive Solutions Nicole Butler in a prepared statement. “This funding helps preserve a historical treasure, continues our support of Newark’s vibrant arts community, and moves Newark Symphony Hall closer to achieving its renovation goals.”

Those goals include a new exterior façade and streetscape in addition to modernizing and reactivating interior community and creative spaces, and the re-introduction of commercial space for offices on certain floors of the building. Leading the effort, and the historic venue, is CEO Taneshia Nash Laird. The work is expected to create 500 construction jobs and contracting opportunities for 50 small businesses from the community.

Located at 1020 Broad St., in a designated Opportunity Zone, the Newark Symphony Hall project is also expected to utilize federal historic tax credits and other economic development funding tools for catalytic projects. And, for the first time in decades, the venue saw state funding from the Fiscal Year 2022 ($5 million) and 2023 ($6 million) spending plans.

Laird will celebrate her fourth anniversary as CEO in November. According to her, the venue increased its earned revenue by more than 100% during the pandemic.

Some of that comes from productions using the space – like the USA Network series “America’s Big Deal,” which broadcast live from the venue in 2021, or the Hulu drama series “Wu-Tang: An American Saga,” which transformed the 145,000-square-foot complex for two episodes – and all of it comes ahead of any physical construction. As Laird noted in July, “The only thing we did is change the perception of what Newark Symphony Hall can be. And so now we are part of a national conversation around inclusive, economic development.”

That inclusive nature also speaks to another component contributing to NSH’s second-coming: The programming that has returned to the space.

The Mellon gift, in particular, will help to set up a new programming department at NSH with three years of support for a director, manager and coordinator. According to NSH, this marks the first time in nearly 20 years that the facility will have a dedicated programming staff. Last year, a financial commitment from the foundation allowed Laird to expand the leadership ranks at NSH.

Speaking over the summer, Laird illustrated a vision that “support[s] the people that have been supporting Symphony Hall for years.” Following the new funding, she said a major programming focus will be to “center the cultures of communities of color, those traditionally marginalized, but who constitute majorities in the city and state and around the globe — including from the African, Latinx and Asian diasporas.”

The new programming department will be tasked with assessing the community’s needs, developing internal infrastructure and scaling scope and reach for its efforts.

As Newark Symphony Hall continues its re-emergence as an anchor institution in the city, Laird acknowledged the role other leaders have played in those efforts.

“It could not have happened without Prudential’s belief that Newark Symphony Hall could truly anchor this side – the very tip, the very end other than the park – of the mayor’s new arts and education district,” she said over the summer.

Shanè Harris, Prudential’s vice president of inclusive solutions, head of social responsibility and partnerships, and president of The Prudential Foundation, detailed the importance of cultural anchors as critical drivers of Newark’s revitalization during a tour of the city in July.

“One of the things that has been interesting, and some of the feedback that we’ve gotten, is that anchor institutions traditionally have been … eds and meds, right?  And in Newark, we are really harnessing a diversity of leaders and institutions to really drive growth in the city. And that includes corporates … but it also includes arts and cultural institutions that have really been the, the backbone of the vibrancy for the city.”

When it comes to the national perception of Newark, and how far from reality that image may lie, Harris said that arts and cultural anchor institutions have been driving the change of that narrative, “and really demonstrating how we could holistically connect with community and have community drive the course of the city.”