When Chris Paladino talks about the latest rendering of H3 — the 42-story, 500-foot tall, 565,000-square feet of office, lab, retail and housing that will serve as the anchor of the transformative HELIX innovation district in New Brunswick — he can only come to one conclusion.
“I think we exceeded our expectations for the HELIX,” he said. “And our expectations were pretty high.”
The latest rendering shows why.
Paladino, the president of the DEVCO New Brunswick Development Corporation and the master developer of what is formally the Health + Life Science Exchange, said the tower not only will have 263 uses of market-rate housing (20% of which will be affordable) but also will include 99 units for medical students working in H1.
The student housing component will be part of the 250,000-square-foot base of the H3 tower, which also will feature approximately 140,000 square feet of retail and office and approximately 50,000 square feet of lab space for the WINLABs (Wireless Information Network Laboratory) that are part of Rutgers University.
“It’s going to be incredible,” Paladino said.
Paladino said he hopes to have a groundbreaking next April for H3, which still is getting all of its approvals. It also figures to be eligible for an Aspire award.
When it is completed, H3 will be the tallest building in New Brunswick (and Middlesex County) and only topped in the state by the Ocean Resort Casino in Atlantic City and a number of high-rises in Jersey City.
Those buildings, however, will not have the same mix of research and science — and will not be part of a science hub that Paladino has dreamed of for more than a decade.
The three-building HELIX is progressing, Paladino said.
H1, which will include Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, translational research space and the New Jersey Innovation Hub, is aiming to open next April, Paladino said.
H2, which will be the new headquarters for Nokia Bell Labs, which is just starting to put in its foundation — aims to be ready by the second quarter of 2028.
H3 obviously will follow after that.
When it is all complete, the HELIX will be approximately 1.5 million square feet and represent an investment of $2 billion.
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More on the HELIX:
Portal selected to run NJ Innovation Hub at the HELIX
JLL to begin marketing plug-and-play lab suites at HELIX
SJP begins construction of Nokia Bell Labs HQ at the HELIX
