Real estate developer Ron Beit is passionate about Newark, New Jersey.
Dedicated to its downtown revitalization, he has worked on dozens of projects in the city’s core, including the mixed-use Teachers Village and Makers Village, with its noteworthy indoor vertical farm design.
Tom Dallessio talked to Beit recently about the potential he sees in Newark, working within a historic district, New Jersey politics and more.
You’ve been described by U.S. Senator Cory Booker as the “James Brown of development,” about being the hardest-working man in all of development.
“When [Booker] said that, it was the groundbreaking of Teachers Village [in Newark]. At that time we were looking at 90 percent surface parking lots and dilapidated buildings. Today we’ve completed four buildings, about to be five, and have broken ground on the sixth and final building in the Village.
We’ve also broken ground on Makers Village, which is going to have the largest vertical farm in the world, and we’re running towards groundbreaking at The Four Corners. What’s going on in the greater Newark marketplace is incredible.”