Adaptive reuse facility in Livingston yields new facility for youth with special needs
REAL ESTATE NJ, October 31, 2018—Lance Blake recalls the day that Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum walked into his Livingston office with a grand design: Grossbaum’s organization, The Friendship Circle, intended to buy the empty warehouse next door and transform it into a 70,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art destination for teaching and supporting children with special needs. There was just one problem — the warehouse was only 46,000 square feet. Realizing that ground-up construction would be prohibitive, Blake and his team at Rotwein+Blake set out to fulfill the project with the building that was in front of them.
Several years later, those efforts are now coming to fruition at the property just off Route 10, where The Friendship Circle is set to debut the long-awaited facility known as LifeTown.