When the first tower opened in downtown Newark in 2019, the city’s mayor stood at the podium and described, in plain terms, what it had taken to get there. “Not so long ago,” Mayor Ras Baraka said, “Newark was a city where developers feared to come and invest, where the entire city had a heavy red line around it.” He was not speaking generally. He named a specific history of institutional disinvestment that had defined the Brick City for decades.

What the mayor did not say, but what was already public knowledge, was that the person who changed that dynamic did not do it because of a business plan. He did it because of his mother’s tears. In a conversation with the New York Post, four-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal revealed the moment that set his $230 million Newark investment in motion.

“It was part of my vision because one day, me and my mom came back and it was kind of beat up, and she kind of had a tear in her eye, and was like, ‘I remember when this city was beautiful. Somebody needs to do something,” O’Neal said. The $230 million figure spanned more than a decade of Newark development.

Furthermore, they were all executed in partnership with Boraie Development. The first project was CityPlex12, a 12-screen movie theatre in Newark’s Central Ward that opened in 2012, which was the first new theatre in the city in three generations. Next came 50 Rector Place, an 80-unit luxury residential high-rise on the Passaic River waterfront that opened in 2019.

It became the first new residential tower in downtown Newark in more than 57 years. O’Neal kept a penthouse unit for himself, and that building was informally nicknamed Shaq Tower. The second tower (777 McCarter) was nicknamed Shaq Tower 2.

The 33-story, 370-unit complex near Newark Penn Station became the largest 80/20 mixed-income residential project in New Jersey’s history, with 20 percent of units designated affordable for families earning up to 50 percent of the regional median income. It generated approximately 500 construction jobs, many through Project IMPACT, a training program for Newark residents seeking positions in local labor unions. A fourth project, 930 McCarter, is in development to transform a neglected section of the Passaic River waterfront, and a fifth involves a new mixed-income development on the site of the former Seth Boyden Court public housing in the Dayton neighborhood, in partnership with Goldman Sachs and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

“When I first met Mayor Baraka, we talked about restoring my favorite city to its past glory,” O’Neal said. “Today, looking around Newark, you can see what teamwork and commitment looks like under true leadership.” Dr. Lucille O’Neal raised Shaquille as a single mother in Newark after she became pregnant with him at 17.

She worked to provide for her children without complaint, something O’Neal described as his definition of what it means to be rich. “My definition of rich,” he has said, “is growing up watching a woman wake up, make our breakfast, iron our clothes, work all day, wear the same gear as yesterday, make our dinner, and never complain.” During his playing career, he bought her a house, paid off her debts, and funded her education through a Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree. She was later awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters from Bethune-Cookman University in 2016.

Shaquille O’Neal has said that her approval means more to him than a $50 million business deal. The motivation that Lucille helped install in her son was not passive. The Lakers legend famously described using the threat of losing her security as competitive fuel on the basketball court: “You can’t outplay me because if you are, you’re taking my mother’s house away and I can’t have that.” It is the same logic applied to an entire city, as if someone doesn’t act, something precious gets lost.

She said it. He heard it. And over the following decade, he spent $230 million responding to it. Newark Was His Mother’s City Before It Was His Development Project The architectural and financial scale of what he built in Newark is genuinely significant.

CityPlex12 gave the Central Ward its first new cinema in three generations. Shaq Tower gave downtown Newark its first new residential high-rise in over half a century. Shaq Tower 2 became the largest mixed-income development in the state.

The waterfront and neighborhood redevelopment projects still in progress will reshape sections of the city that have been neglected for decades. By any civic or commercial measure, the investment has had a tangible impact. Sep 15, 2024; Arlington, Texas, USA; Former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal stands on the sidelines before a game between the New Orleans Saints and Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium.

Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images But the reason it happened was a woman who looked at a city she remembered as beautiful and was unable to hide her grief at seeing what it had become. Big Shaq built an empir