In the middle of the business district of Elizabeth, the eight-story, 100,000-square-foot structure at 12 W. Jersey St., had served as the headquarters of the Elizabethtown Gas Company since 1967. When Union County College (today UCNJ Union College of Union County, NJ) first set its sights on it in 1987, they saw a campus that play a key role expanding its “urban initiative.” Getting there took state approvals, a $2 million purchase in 1990, a construction budget of $13.8 million, and a zoning variance from the city before it finally opened in 1992.

The building opened as the Sidney F. Lessner Building, named for then member of the college’s Board of Trustees. It opened at a consequential moment — in the middle of a recession. “People are being laid off now,” Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn said at the time, “and they’re trying to learn new skills for a new career.”

President Thomas H. Brown described the location as an “epicenter of transportation” with a train station within walking distance and more than thirty bus lines stopping nearby. The college had spent twenty years moving through Elizabeth, from a storefront on South Broad Street in 1970 to the YMCA on Madison Avenue to the Thomas and Betts building on Butler Street, each time serving a city in transition.

Today it houses classrooms, labs, and administrative offices, as well as the One Stop Center, the main hub where UCNJ students find guidance and support.