Former Sacred Heart School Campus Approved for 14-Unit Development
By E. Assata Wright | The Jersey City Times | April 7, 2026
Copied by permission of the Jersey City Times
What was once a Dominican priory in the Jackson Hill neighborhood will soon be converted into residential housing with a Spanish Gothic touch. The plan, which recently received approval to move forward, is a far cry from a different residential vision the city briefly floated more than a decade ago.
Until last year, the property at 183 Bayview Ave. was home to Sacred Heart School, which was part of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church campus at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The Planning Board has now approved an adaptive reuse plan that will convert the priory into 14 units of housing, and this is the first of a multi-phase redevelopment plan for the Sacred Heart property. Much of the original character of the building, which was designed by Ralph Adams Cram, will be retained by Weckenmann Architecture, which is reworking the priory for the developer.
The Planning Board unanimously approved the plans for the priory, and no members of the public spoke in opposition. For more than a decade, historic preservationists have expressed concern regarding the fate of Sacred Heart Church and the church complex, which includes the priory, in general. In 2008, Preservation New Jersey added the church to its annual list of “10 Most Endangered Historic Places” at imminent risk of being lost. More recently, the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy pressed the Archdiocese of Newark for greater transparency about plans for the site after a stained-glass window by renowned artist Harry Wright Goodhue was destroyed last April.
Weckenmann is working with the city’s historic preservation staff to maintain some of the priory’s Gothic design elements, including the high-ceilinged chapel, which will be converted into an amenity space for residents. The configuration of the priory’s original entrance also will be maintained, although building residents will access the property through a new entrance lobby on the lower level. That level will also include two housing units in the northeast and northwest corners, while the remaining stories of the building will have four units.
The floors above the lower level will share a similar footprint, with two units on the building’s east side, and two units on the west. The unit mix will be 10 one-bedroom units, and four units with two bedrooms. Units 11 and 12 will have balconies that will make use of the building’s existing architecture.
“We’re keeping some of the historic features of the interior of the building, at staff’s recommendation,” lead architect William Weckenmann told the board. “We’re not proposing any additions to the building … The exterior work on the building is fairly limited. The stone is in really good shape and the existing slate roof is also in really good shape. So those will be maintained, repointed, and cleaned as required. We’re keeping all of the existing window openings, but we’ll be replacing the windows with a more historically appropriate casement window.”
He added that the Archdiocese of Newark has already removed any “religiously significant stained glass.” What little stained glass remains will be kept, and where necessary, repaired, he said. In addition, the ornamental stonework that framed the windows will be repointed and retained.
The priory’s 1936 cornerstone, which is chipped, will be repaired, Weckenmann noted.
For the project to be approved, the board had to adjust the property line between the priory and church 20 feet to the west since the priory building straddled the property line.
The plans for the Sacred Heart priory are in marked contrast to the plan for Saint Lucy’s Church Downtown on Grove Street, where only the facade has been retained to become part of a modern residential building, and received much scorn from the community.
The Archdiocese of Newark closed Sacred Heart Church in 2005, even as the school remained open. After a four-year affiliation, Sacred Heart School officially became part of Saint Paul the Apostle Parish last September, with Sacred Heart students attending classes in the former Saint Paul’s School, which closed in 2003.
Multiple visions for the property have been suggested for years. One early proposal called for the church to be converted into a community center. Later, in 2015, the priory was slated to be a reentry housing and service center for ex-offenders leaving incarceration, until local residents raised alarms over those plans, backed by then-Mayor Steven Fulop. In June of that year the Jersey City Employment and Training Program received a multi-year, $4.2 million state grant, according to reporting in the Jersey Journal. The idea had been for the priory to be an outpost of the program’s first hub, known as Martin’s Place, on MLK Drive. Outraged Sacred Heart School parents were notified of the city’s plans for the priory a month later, just weeks before the start of the 2015-2016 school year.
In response to community pushback, former Gov. Jim McGreevey — who headed the Jersey City Employment and Training Program from 2013 to 2019 — ultimately abandoned what would have been known as Martin’s Place Community Resource Center at Sacred Heart.
