Top executives and public officials gathered Thursday, Sept. 4, to break ground on the Nokia Bell Labs’ new 10-story, 370,000-square-foot research and office tower in New Brunswick.
By Joshua Burd
The steel frame of a new landmark tower for Nokia Bell Labs will be visible in downtown New Brunswick as soon as next spring, with construction well underway on a facility that will be the technology giant’s home for decades to come.
Those were among the key themes on Thursday as a group of top executives and public officials marked a ceremonial groundbreaking for the 10-story, 370,000-square-foot building directly across from the city’s train station. That puts it on track to open by 2028 as the second phase the four-acre Health + Life Science Exchange or HELIX campus, when Nokia Bell Labs will relocate the iconic research team and business unit that has spent more than 80 years in the Murray Hill section of Union County.
Steve Pozycki of SJP Properties, the project’s developer, noted that the team has already completed the foundations and will have two levels of concrete in place by December. But he also touted key features for a building that will be “designed for the most advanced electronic experimentation in North America” and other innovations, including a second floor with a four-foot slab for vibration controls.
“The decision to come to New Brunswick was for their employees and their future,” said Pozycki, SJP’s founder and CEO. “And clearly, getting people back to work, fostering collaboration and helping attract the top talent is what New Brunswick will offer because of the many benefits that New Brunswick brings to the table.”
Nokia Bell Labs will lease the facility from SJP as part of the three-phase HELIX campus at Albany and Spring streets, whose master developer is New Brunswick Development Corp. And the building is set to rise alongside the complex’s nearly completed first phase, which will house the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, an incubator known as known as the New Jersey Innovation Hub and a facility for top researchers from Rutgers across some 574,000 square feet.
The Nokia Bells Labs building is slated to generate some 1,000 construction jobs, officials said Thursday, a figure that largely matches the workforce that will move from Murray Hill.
“This will be 1,000 mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists and electrical engineers coming to New Brunswick,” said Chris Paladino, president of New Brunswick Development Corp., or Devco, later adding: “Five hundred of those mathematicians and scientists are going to be young people who are graduating from Rutgers and Princeton and Stevens and NJIT. The fact that we have someone like Nokia being eager to collaborate with the academic research that will be going on here is incredible.”
Those on hand for Thursday’s groundbreaking included Nokia Bell Labs executives as well as Gov. Phil Murphy, New Brunswick Mayor Jim Cahill, New Jersey Economic Development Authority CEO Tim Sullivan and Middlesex County Commissioner Director Ron Rios. Each has played a central role in the development of the HELIX and the victory that was attracting Nokia Bell Labs, as the speakers noted, part of a journey that began roughly a decade ago when Devco and city officials set out to redevelop the hulking, concrete Ferren Mall and parking deck across the train station.
Cahill, for his part, credited Murphy for taking a step in March 2018 that jumpstarted those efforts — declaring that the four-acre site would become a new innovation hub to attract and nurture technology and life sciences in the state and signaling the state’s full support.
“That moment sparked these projects, and the tremendous efforts of so many, led by Governor Murphy, have taken us to where we are today,” Cahill said. “But the HELIX is far more than a set of buildings. It’s a transformational district uniting health care, education, life sciences, innovation, entrepreneurship and community — redefining our state, our county and our city as a major global innovation hub.
“Having Nokia Bell Lab settle its headquarters here will have a lasting impact on our city’s identity and economy for generations to come.”
SJP’s team for the Nokia Bell Labs project also includes its financial partner, Morgan Stanley, and PNC Bank as the construction lender. JLL’s Dan Loughlin, Blake Goodman, Dan Spero, Jason Benson and Peter Ladas represented the landlord, with Sam Horowitz, Chris Hovanec and Ray Iodice of Colliers representing the tenant and Newmark’s Adam Spies and Chris Kramer representing the equity partner.
