REPORTS TO BE MADE ON BILLIONS OF CONSTRUCTION SPENDING BY NEW JERSEY PHARMACEUTICAL AND MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIES
Get the inside story on the billions of dollars planned for construction spending by New Jersey’s pharmaceutical and medical technology industries. Top industry executives will make presentations at a special statewide conference cosponsored by the New Jersey Alliance for Action and the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey on Thursday, May 15, at the Lafayette Yard Marriott Conference Center in Trenton.

On hand to outline the economic impacts of those projects will be Angie McGuire, Deputy Chief of Governor Corzine’s Office of Economic Growth. Registration will begin at 8 a.m. followed by the program at 9 a.m.

Presentations will include the following key industry leaders:

• Schering-Plough’s expansion of its Summit Campus by Geoff Monk, Vice President of Global Engineering Services.
• Baxter Health Care’s Cherry Hill facility construction by Brien Johnson, Vice President of Manufacturing.
• Abbott Point of Care’s New Jersey diagnostic division expansion by Kevin Buckbee, Chief Financial Officer.
• Novo Nordisk’s new headquarters in Plainsboro by Richard Campbell, Director of Operations of StructureTone, the Construction Manager.

HOSPITAL LEADERS REPORT ON CONSTRUCTION ECONOMIC STIMULUS
New Jersey hospital and healthcare professionals said that, even during an economic downturn, their planned construction and expansion projects will inject billions of dollars and thousands of jobs into New Jersey’s economy.

At a recent conference sponsored by the New Jersey Alliance for Action in Trenton, the hospital leaders reported on projects ranging from a proposed university/hospital campus in Newark to a new cancer center in Hackensack and a multi-component health care complex in the Princeton-Plainsboro area.

The conference moderator, Robert M. Gerard, Chief Marketing Officer, Birdsall Services Group, reported that New Jersey hospitals generate about $15.8 billion into the state’s economy with a “ripple effect” that fuels a total of $38.5 billion of economic activity.

Dr. Robert Altenkirch, President of New Jersey Institute of Technology, described a project being planned between NJIT and Saint Michael’s Hospital to create a mixed-use campus to include residential and retail facilities for the area around both institutions in Newark. He said the estimated overall cost of the conceptual plan is $500 million.

Barry Rabner, President & CEO of Princeton HealthCare System, reported on components planned for a 156 acre site that will include a replacement hospital, 200-bed skilled nursing facility, senior services and assisted living, a pediatric sub-services building, a wellness center, education center and diagnostic building. Rabner said the site is bounded by Route 1, Scudder’s Mill Road and the Millstone River. He estimated that the cost associated with all the components, including the new hospital, would approach $1.35 billion and create nearly 4,000 construction jobs.

Robert Koller, Vice President, Corporate and Facilities Development at Hackensack University Medical Center, told 200 people at the conference that Hackensack recently broke ground for a new cancer center on four levels with 160,000 square feet of space that will have a connection to a 1,000-car parking garage that also will be built. He said the cancer center is scheduled for completion by mid-2010 and the total project cost is about $117 million.

Greg D’Adamo, Vice President of Support Services at Capital Health System of Trenton, reported on plans for a new health care/hospital project to be constructed in Hopewell at Interstate Route 95 North and Scotch Road.

NJ TRANSIT REPORTS INCREASES IN RAIL AND BUS RIDERSHIP
NJ Transit reports a 6.3 percent increase in rail ridership for the first three months of 2008, compared to the same period last year. That comes after the number of rail passengers increased by 2.2 percent during the last three months of 2007, including a record 23 million rail riders last October.

Buses also are more crowded with a 1.8 percent increase in ridership during the first quarter of 2008. A NJ Transit spokesman commented: “It’s difficult to attribute the increases to one single factor, but what we’ve heard is that gas prices are a factor, especially among first-time transit users.”

FINAL PHASE BEGINS FOR EXPANSION OF DRISCOLL BRIDGE
The final construction phase of the $240 million expansion of the Alfred F. Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway is under way. Traffic is now flowing over the newly rebuilt north-bound span, freeing the old southbound span for lane expansion work to begin.

The project began a year ago and is scheduled to be completed in July 2009. It will bring the bridge to a total of 15 lanes --- eight northbound and seven southbound. Each direction also will have two shoulder lanes. Once completed, it is believed that the Driscoll will be the world’s widest bridge.

METUCHEN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT READY TO COMMENCE
Work will begin in two weeks for construction in Metuchen of the Greenway Plaza development at the old site of Cryan’s Restaurant on Middlesex Avenue. The Newark-based developer is Highland Port Development.

Jack Pires, Highland Port’s managing partner, said plans for the 2,865-acre site include a building with a restaurant and outdoor café on the first floor and banquet facilities on the second floor. A second building, with three floors, will house a bank and drive-up facility and two other commercial tenants. The second and third floors will have 16 apartments. A 172-space parking lot will be built behind the complex.

STUDY ESTIMATES ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS
The Rutgers University Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Policy released a study on the economic impacts of New Jersey’s plans to spend $42.5 billion on transportation projects over the next ten years. The study estimates that nearly 27,000 full-time jobs per year would be generated.

Other ten-year projections are $15 billion in jobs income, $20.3 billion is gross domestic product and more than $1.5 billion in state and local tax revenues. The projects planned for construction from 2008 to 2018 would be by the State Department of Transportation, NJ TRANSIT, New Jersey Turnpike and South Jersey Transportation Authority.

RUTGERS GETS FEDERAL BRIDGES STUDY CONTRACT
Rutgers University received a contract from the federal government worth up to $25.5 million to study the nation’s bridges and recommend how to better maintain and repair them.

Partnering with Rutgers on the study will be the engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff and academic researchers from Utah State University, the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and the University of California (Berkeley).

The five-year contract calls for collecting bridge performance data for the study, which will be the first nationally to standardize such data. Rutgers plans to present the findings to Congress in 2013.

PSE&G TO OFFER SOLAR ENERGY LOAN PROGRAM FOR COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
Public Service Electric & Gas Co. received approval from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for a new financing program to help equip commercial buildings with solar power. The program will offer up to $105 million in loans for solar-panel installations.

The loans, with an interest rate of 11.11 percent, will initially be available to commercial and municipal properties which plan to equip buildings with new solar panels. Loans to residential property owners will follow. For information and for applications go to www.pseg.com/solarloan.

MAJOR FOOD-WASTE RECYCLING PLANS PROPOSED FOR NEW JERSEY
Investments in recycling facilities in New Jersey for food-waste will be made by two out-of-state companies. The recycling plants would convert discarded food-waste from restaurants, supermarkets and food processors into for-sale fertilizer and compost products.

Converted Organics, which is Boston-based, is building its food waste recycling plant at Bayshore Recycling’s 55-acre “recycling park” in Woodbridge. The 60,000 square-foot facility is scheduled to open this summer in a renovated 300,000 square-foot building, at a project cost of $20 million.

Peninsula Compost, based in Wilmington, Del., is seeking permits to build a food-waste recycling plant on a 60-acre site it owns in BurlingtonTownship. If the firm receives approval, it says the facility is expected to be in operation by 2009.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
-Jennifer Godoski has been named Deputy Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
-Lisa Westerfield has joined Structure Tone as Director of Business Development for South Jersey.
-Dave Critchley is the new President of the Morris & Sussex County Building Trades.
-Ray Woodall is the new Business Manager and Brett Torppey is the new Assistant Agent/Financial Secretary at Ironworkers Local 11.

To tell us what you think of our on-line news Go Here.

Back to Online News Home Page