The Elizabeth I. Kellogg at 40 W. Jersey St. stands one block east of the Lessner Building, on the far side of the rail tracks that cut through downtown. Together, the two form what UCNJ Union College of Union County, NJ, had been working toward since 1970: a permanent two-building campus in the heart of the city’s business district. Named to honor the support of the Kellogg family, the Kellogg Building houses classrooms, the campus library, the archives, continuing-education programs, and the RWJ Barnabas School of Nursing.

The college had first proposed building at this location back in the 1990s. When construction finally started in mid-2007, it was funded at $48.6 million through the Union County Improvement Authority. By the end of that year, the country was facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. When the Kellogg Building opened in the fall of 2009, the new six-story structure stood almost alone amid stalled development. Mayor J. Christian Bollwage, who had been pushing for economic growth in the area for years, saw it as a turning point: “UCC’s going to be a catalyst for further economic development in midtown.” President Thomas Brown said the building will be the college’s “Hope diamond, its most modern facility to serve all our students.”

In September 2021, Hurricane Ida sent four feet of floodwater through the building, forcing a closure of more than a year. When the Kellogg Building reopened in December 2022, students returned to the corner that had once been a vacant lot and now serves as a center of academic and community activity.