210 Somerset St. in New Brunswick — Photo by Skyview Media/Courtesy: AST
By Joshua Burd
AST has completed its latest project in downtown New Brunswick, delivering a new 229,000-square-foot ambulatory care facility for Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
The developer joined RWJBarnabas Health, the hospital’s parent organization, and Mayor James Cahill recently to debut the 15-story building at 210 Somerset St. The medical pavilion will now provide critical expansion space for the hospital, whose main campus is directly to the east, with what AST described as leading-edge exam rooms to enhance clinical practice workflows and the patient experience, along with a modern ground-floor lobby with a café and direct access to the adjacent public parking garage.
Torcon Inc. oversaw construction, while Jarmel Kizel provided architecture and mechanical engineering and O’Donnell & Naccarato and Langan managed structural and civil engineering, respectively. JLL arranged financing, with Kelso & Burgess providing legal land use services and Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis LLP performing legal transactional work.
“This ribbon cutting represents the realization of a vision nearly two decades in the making,” said Robert J. D’Anton, president of AST. “We are proud to have partnered with RWJBarnabas Health, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and the City of New Brunswick to bring this state-of-the-art facility to life. The completion of 210 Somerset Street expands access to essential ambulatory care services, strengthening New Brunswick’s role as a center for medical excellence and innovation.”
RWJUH operates at the facility under a master lease with AST, its owner and developer, which noted that 210 Somerset is the culmination of a multiphase redevelopment plan for a 1.2-acre city block between Somerset and French streets. That began in 2006 with the construction of an 854-space parking garage on behalf of the New Brunswick Parking Authority.
The firm then completed a nine-story, 125,000-square-foot medical office building at 10 Plum St. that’s also leased to RWJUH and has four operating rooms, one procedure room, a 10-bed post-anesthesia care unit and a 13-bed pre- and post-operative area, according to a news release. The multispecialty center offers general, gynecological, vascular, plastic, podiatric and retina-vitreous surgery, as well as pain management and endoscopy procedures.
Together, 10 Plum and 210 Somerset comprise 354,000 square feet of medical space, creating a modern destination for ambulatory care in the heart of New Brunswick’s health care district.
