Featured Project: New Jersey Performing Arts Center

Medallion installed view

Detail

Medallion view from above

Detail center of medallion

Bob Sawyer of Creative Edge Master Shop

Location: New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark, NJ

Architect: David Karp, Barton Myers Associates Inc., Los Angeles, CA

Designer: Peter Robertson

Stone Medallion Fabricator: Creative Edge Master Shop, Fairfield, IA

Contractor: Tiede Zoeller Inc., Long Beach, MS

Tile Installation System: Laticrete International Inc., Bethany, CT

Lawrence Goldman, President & CEO of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, requested the Architects of the Center, Barton Myers Associates, to design a new floor for the Center’s Entrance Rotunda. The Rotunda is a circular space, sixty six feet wide. There had been some cracking in the original terrazzo floor and the Center wanted a new, image changing, stone floor to display their extensive list of donors. The original display for donors had exhausted the space for the burgeoning list.

Creative Edge was selected to cut, fabricate and install the granite selected for the floor. They were also responsible for inscribing and painting the donor inscriptions and names. Following the selection and approval of four granites of different shades for the intricate radial design, Ross Richards, NJPAC VP of Operations and Real Estate and I traveled to Fairfield, Iowa to review progress. From the beginning, Bob Sawyer, who directed the operation for Creative Edge was instrumental in the success of the project. We worked as a team. We put our heads together to determine the most resourceful way of using the stone to minimize the amount of stone, any perceived imperfections were immediately replaced and Bob found a superior product for the black and gold painted letters.

The setting of the stone on site was well organized, uneventful in terms of problems and was completed as scheduled. In October of 2009, the Center held a gala to celebrate the grand unveiling. Larry Goldman made a stirring speech with his appreciation and admiration of the new floor for its design and fabrication, followed by the music of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and dinner in the Center’s Theater Square Grille.

David H. Karp, Associate
Barton Myers Associates, Inc.

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center was chosen as the Laticrete Project of the Year for 2010, as well as the Laticrete Project Spotlight for February, 2010.