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Plans for H-2, the second phase of the New Jersey Health + Life Sciences Exchange in downtown New Brunswick, will include 360,000 square feet of build-to-suit lab and office space at the mixed-use campus. 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.
By Joshua Burd
One of New Jersey’s most iconic technology companies is headed to New Brunswick, where it will occupy a new lab and office building that’s slated to include some 360,000 square feet.
Nokia Bell Labs, long based in the Murray Hill section of Berkeley Heights, is slated to announce today that it will become part of the high-profile Health + Life Science Exchange or HELIX development that’s now taking shape in the downtown. It will be the sole tenant at a tower to be built by New Brunswick Development Corp., the project’s master developer, and SJP Properties, under a ground-up project that the real estate firms unveiled earlier this year.
Executives will detail the plan during an afternoon press conference that’s expected to draw Gov. Phil Murphy and other officials, as first reported by ROI-NJ, one that’s likely to highlight Nokia Bell Labs’ history of innovation in the state that is intertwined with its Murray Hill campus. That legacy includes the development of the transistor, one of 10 breakthroughs by researchers that earned Nobel Prizes during nearly a century at the complex.
“As the industrial research arm of Nokia, Nokia Bell Labs has always moved with the times to deliver some of the world’s most important technological breakthroughs,” the company wrote in a pre-event announcement. “From the creation of the world’s first transistor and solar cell to the birth of cellular and satellite communications, Unix, and today’s AI, 6G and industrial automation research, New Jersey has been the home to this cutting-edge innovation.
“Now Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs are reaffirming their commitment to the East Coast and New Jersey, upholding a longstanding tradition of groundbreaking research and development in the region.”
The new facility will be the second phase of the four-acre HELIX project, which sits just south of Albany Street, across from the New Brunswick train station and steps from Rutgers University. And the announcement comes as construction continues on the project’s first phase, H-1, which will comprise a 12-story, 574,000-square-foot building and include a multiuse facility known as the New Jersey Innovation HUB, the new home of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a Rutgers translational research facility with labs to advance the work of 80 research teams focused on improving individual and public health.
According to ROI-NJ, Nokia Bell Labs’ move is projected to bring roughly 1,000 jobs to New Brunswick and will be one of 10 R&D facilities that Nokia has around the world, but the only one located in North America. It will also be a crowning achievement for Murphy and his ongoing push to grow the state’s innovation economy.
The timeline for what’s known as H-2 was not immediately clear ahead of Monday’s announcement. H-1 is slated to open around 2025, while New Brunswick Development Corp. or Devco is also planning a 42-story third phase that could include additional office space and 220 units of housing.
The full project figures to benefit from a planned $49 million renovation of the New Brunswick train station, which is served by both NJ Transit and Amtrak, and from its proximity to several major health, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies that are headquartered nearby. Additionally, the complex will be within an hour’s drive of several other prominent colleges and universities, including Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
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