The Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center has opened in downtown New Brunswick, following a $1 billion project that has brought top-tier patient care and cutting-edge research labs under one roof. — All photos courtesy: RWJBarnabas Health
By Joshua Burd
The encounter with Jack Morris was every bit as memorable as it was abrupt, as Chris Paladino suggested nearly a decade later, as he recalled his exchange with the real estate magnate and then-board chair of the hospital system known as RWJBarnabas Health.
“It seems just like yesterday that Chairman Morris came bounding into a meeting, pulled me aside and said, ‘I just interviewed the next director of the cancer institute — Steve Libutti. He’s going to be great,’” said Paladino, president of New Brunswick Development Corp.
“And as he walked away, he looked back over his shoulder, just like only Jack could, and said, ‘And by the way, I promised him a big new building.’”
It was only fitting that Paladino shared the story on recent Tuesday in downtown New Brunswick, where he joined Morris, Libutti and other key players to unveil the new 12-story, 520,000-square-foot Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center after years of design, land assemblage and construction. The landmark facility, located at 165 Somerset St., is New Jersey’s first freestanding cancer hospital and one of only 13 in the country, part of a $1 billion project that has brought top-tier patient care and cutting-edge research labs under one roof.
SLIDESHOW: The Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center
It’s also the centerpiece of a massive investment in RWJBarnabas Health’s physical footprint — one that’s ongoing — highlighting the increasingly vital role of ground-up development in New Jersey’s health care sector. That’s evident by the overall $1.5 billion expansion of cancer services by the hospital system and Rutgers Cancer Institute, which includes the new Morris Cancer Center as well as major new oncology hubs in Livingston and Tinton Falls that will come online over the next year, among other major projects.
“This is just the beginning,” said Morris, CEO of Edgewood Properties, who was a driving force behind the new cancer center, thanks in large part to his family’s outsized philanthropy. “We’ll continue to build because those buildings will provide the best care for people, the best equipment, the best talent and the best outcomes for our patients.”
Hospitals have prioritized major capital projects in recent years, with health care spending on the rise as a larger segment of the population reaches retirement age. According to CBRE, senior citizens are expected to make up about 20 percent of U.S. residents by 2030, when they’ll account for nearly $2 trillion in total outpatient health care spending.
New Jersey hospital systems are no exception, from Hackensack Meridian Health’s new $200 million ambulatory care center in Woodbridge to Cooper University Health Care’s $3 billion expansion of its campus in Camden. The Morris Cancer Center, for its part, follows a project spearheaded by Paladino’s team at New Brunswick Development Corp., anchoring a sweeping real estate program that has helped RWJBarnabas and the Rutgers Cancer Institute attract more than 100 specialists and subspecialists in recent years.
Mark Manigan, RWJBarnabas’ CEO and president, said as much in mid-May at the cancer center’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, adding that it was part of a “flywheel of activity” envisioned by the health care system’s leaders. He also pointed to the newly opened, 229,000-square-foot ambulatory care facility nearby, which provides Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital with critical expansion space, plus upgrades to the main campus, echoing comments he made in late 2023 during a panel discussion hosted by Real Estate NJ
“This is the flywheel we’re trying to create, where we’re bringing together real estate development that is sexy and appealing to the clinicians you want to have working at your clinics, training your doctors, innovating and inventing,” Manigan said during the 2023 event. “When they come into town and they see what we’re doing, the investments we’re making and the success we’ve had in growing and attracting talent, that’s what we’re doing here.”
The Morris Cancer Center will check all those boxes with features such as 96 inpatient beds, 88 infusion bays, 80 exam rooms and a Jersey Shore-themed clinical space for pediatric patients, along with a dedicated floor for surgical and procedure rooms, advanced radiation oncology and diagnostics, an on-site pharmacy and modern laboratories to support 10 independent research teams. All of it in a pavilion that is bright, open and designed with an aesthetic that’s meant to be calm and comforting, seemingly blending health care and hospitality while ensuring patients don’t have to leave New Jersey for top-notch care.
“So many doctors have told me this — your state of mind is so important to how you handle this terrible disease and the treatment,” Morris said. “Some people decide they want to give up and they say, I don’t want to go through this any longer. And when their mind decides, their body goes with them.
“We’ve seen it so many times. And to have a facility like this … it’s just a different feeling — and that’s what people deserve. They deserve that sense of ‘Wow, I’m going to be OK,’ rather than ‘I’m coming into this place that I may never get out of,’ so I believe that’s really important.”
RWJBarnabas’ construction pipeline also includes the $225 million Melchiorre Cancer Center at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, which will open this fall and serve as the northern hub for the health system and Rutgers Cancer Institute’s statewide oncology services. Also under construction is the Specialty and Cancer Care Center at the $200 million Vogel Medical Campus in Tinton Falls, which is slated to open in 2026.
Libutti, the Rutgers Cancer Institute director, noted that each facility is meant to provide patients and their families with services and support closer to their homes.
“Our investment in campuses that are strategically positioned throughout the RWJBH system is unprecedented and unparalleled,” Libutti said, according to a blog post by the hospital system. “We’re committed to addressing cancer across the spectrum and easing the burdens for patients.”
