Page 30 - RE-NJ

28 JANUARY 2024
It was nearly a year ago that a dozen or so executives with Nokia toured the site of what will
become the HELIX, a planned four- acre campus in New Brunswick that will house a mix of health care, life sciences and academic institutions in the heart of the downtown.
It only boded well that the technology giant, in search of a new home for its iconic Bell Labs division, appeared to be well prepared and well versed in all that the city had to offer.
“Without prompting from us, the
leadership on that site visit was asking questions and hitting all of
universities and the Northeast Corridor, he recalled, plus the ability to recruit the next generation of talent and all that an urban setting has to offer.
“To hear them talk about all of those benchmarks, as opposed to state incentives or what the cost
of construction is — leading with those things that are very important to companies but are also strong assets of New Brunswick — led me to be very optimistic from day one,” Paladino said.
That optimism was well founded. In
early December, Nokia announced that it would move to the city from its historic Bell Labs campus in
the Murray Hill section of Union County, with plans to occupy a built-to-suit, 360,000-square-foot lab and office tower at the HELIX by 2028. It’s slated to do so under
a lease with SJP Properties, which will build the facility in partnership with Paladino’s team, marking a signature deal for New Brunswick and for the three-phase, 1.6 million- square-foot development.
It’s also slated to bring some 1,000
LEGACY MOMENT
Inside the landmark deal to bring Nokia Bell Labs to New Brunswick’s HELIX campus
By Joshua Burd
Chris Paladino
the benchmarks that we believe made New Brunswick
a strong candidate for this type of project,” said Chris Paladino, president of
New Brunswick Development Corp., the master developer for the HELIX property. There was the prospect
of being closer to major research
Plans for H-2, the second phase of the Health & Life Science Exchange in downtown New Brunswick, will include 360,000 square feet of build-to-suit lab and office space for Nokia Bell Labs. It would rise alongside a first phase that’s now under construction and slated to include a facility known as the New Jersey Innovation HUB, a new home for the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a center for what’s known as translational research.
Courtesy: New Brunswick Development Corp.