The Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center at 165 Somerset St. in New Brunswick — Courtesy: RWJBarnabas Health
By Joshua Burd
Fittingly so, it was a major construction project that helped pique Jack Morris’ interest when Harvey Holzberg, CEO of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, asked him to join the board of the New Brunswick institution. That was a quarter-century ago, as the planned Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital was taking shape just west of RWJ’s main campus.
The self-described “young, up-and-coming real estate guy” was happy to be a sounding board and do what he could to help the highly respected health care executive.
“If you knew Harvey … you did what he told you to do,” Morris joked. “I was a good soldier.”
The Edgewood Properties CEO, now the hospital’s longtime board chair, recalled the story last week as RWJ’s parent organization prepares to unveil another capital project in New Brunswick. This one, however, is even larger and much more personal for Morris, who will be among those on hand Tuesday to unveil New Jersey’s first freestanding cancer hospital. Aside from being a driving force behind the cutting-edge, 520,000-square-foot facility, thanks in large part to his family’s outsized philanthropy, Morris has direct experience with loved ones battling and ultimately succumbing to cancer that guided his role in the transformative project.
The new Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center will also be personal for tens of thousands of other patients and families in the state — and that’s what matters most to Morris.
“It’s so important that people understand what they now have in New Jersey and they know that if, God forbid they get this terrible disease, they’re going to get the best care,” he said. “And people from all over the country will be coming to New Jersey to get the best care. To me, that is amazing, and that is something that I will always cherish to know that I was part of.”
Located at 165 Somerset St., just north of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the 12-story building has opened following a $750 million project spearheaded by New Brunswick Development Corp., or Devco, on behalf of RWJBarnabas Health and the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. They note that the landmark facility will provide the latest in comprehensive cancer diagnosis, research, treatment and support services all under one roof and in a setting that will reshape the experience for those touched by the disease.
Critically, RWJBarnabas said, patients and families will have access to a long list of services that will be available within a few elevator stops, including imaging, surgery, oncology, chemotherapy, clinical trials and highly specialized advanced treatments. All of it in a pavilion that is bright, modern and designed with an aesthetic that’s meant to be calm and comforting, seemingly blending health care and hospitality while ensuring they don’t have to travel to New York City, Philadelphia or elsewhere.
“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.”
That’s not to mention being state-of-the-art from the standpoint of facilities and technology, which he said is already “attracting some of the best of the best from around the country” in terms of researchers and clinicians, and being next to RWJ hospital, which he said was crucial from an integration standpoint.
“Location was so important to me,” said Morris, who was the founding chair of RWJBarnabas Health after the 2016 merger of RWJ Health System and Barnabas Health.
Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting will cap off four years of construction and years of planning, land assemblage and other real estate transactions that were necessary to bring the project to fruition. The hospital occupies the former site of the Lincoln Annex School, whose students and staff have since moved to the newly built, $55 million Blanquita B. Valenti Community School on Jersey Avenue, in a project paid for by RWJBarnabas on land that Morris donated.
And while “The Morris” will be the system’s new center of excellence for cancer care, RWJBarnabas is investing in modern facilities throughout the state. That reportedly includes the soon-to-open, $225 million Melchiorre Cancer Center at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, along with the $200 million Vogel Medical Campus in Tinton Falls slated to debut next year.
There is much more to come, according to Morris, following what will be the latest reminder of the power of the built environment in health care.
“This is just the beginning,” he said. “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.”
New Brunswick cancer hospital tops out, as leaders tout social impact of $750 million project
