New arts hub with black box theater coming to Downtown Jersey City

In just over a year, Downtown Jersey City will be home to a new hub for the visual and performing arts.

Nimbus Dance Works, a Jersey City-based dance company and school, has announced the development of a 14,200-square-foot facility in the Power House Arts district.

Located at 321 Warren St., the Nimbus Arts Center at the Lively will feature a 150-seat black box theater, studio and rehearsal space for the dance company and school, and company administrative offices. The arts facility, which is expected to open in December 2019, will reside on the ground floors of the building, with apartments above.

"The realization of this extraordinary new arts center represents the coming together of many threads and trajectories: for Nimbus, for the Powerhouse Arts District, and for the long legacy of Jersey City arts and culture, which have always been at the heart of our city's core identity," Samuel Pott, the artistic director of Nimbus Dance Works, said in a statement.

The project will also establish a partnership between Pott's organization and Saint Peter's University, through which new initiatives in delivering arts education will be explored.

Pro Arts Jersey City, a professional membership community dedicated to advancing and promoting artists, will serve as the resident visual arts organization at the new facility, presenting a rotating calendar of art exhibitions, events, and professional development sessions.

"Saint Peter's is thrilled to partner with Nimbus Dance Works to provide education in the arts, in a vital, impactful, and thriving arts center in the heart of Downtown Jersey City," Saint Peter's University President Eugene J. Cornacchia said in a statement. "The arts hold a special role in upholding the values of community, compassion, and spiritual growth, which are essential to Saint Peter's mission."

Meanwhile, Pro Arts Jersey City Co-Presidents Mollie Thonneson and Michael Endy said the partnership will enable their organization to build an unprecedented level of support and visibility for local visual art.

As part of an agreement brokered by the Jersey City government and spearheaded by former Councilwoman Candice Osborne, the project's developer Lennar Multifamily is providing the theater and lobby portions of the Nimbus Arts Center.

Founded in 2005, the Nimbus company has a repertory of over 25 works that it performs both locally and nationally. The organization's community engagement initiatives serve more than 3,000 children each year through in-school, movement-based programs, while the Nimbus dance school holds 45 classes throughout the week.

Currently located in the former Brick Haus gym on Newark Avenue, the move to the Power House Arts District is a welcome change for Pott and Nimbus, he said.

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