The Gateway is quickly rising in New Brunswick adjacent to the city’s rail station. When completed in mid-2012, this project of the New Brunswick Development Corporation (DEVCO) will be a 624,000 square foot building that will combine residential, commercial and educational uses, and provide additional parking in the downtown. The project will also create a direct connection between the west-bound platform of the New Brunswick Station and the principal thoroughfare through Rutgers University’s main campus, College Avenue.
Work on the lower portion of the building, a seven-story podium, is nearly completed and should be operational by the end of 2011. The podium will house a 10-level parking structure wrapped by commercial and office uses including the Rutgers University Bookstore (operated by Barnes & Noble), additional street level retail and five levels of Class A office space. The steel frame for the 14-story residential tower that will sit atop the podium is being erected and is expected to be topped off in Spring 2011.
The 192 residential units in the tower include 42 market rate condominiums situated on the top three levels, and 150 apartments with 20 percent set aside as affordable housing. Construction of the wide span pedestrian bridge linking College Avenue directly to the westbound train platform has also begun. Upon completion, the 270-ft. long bridge will include LED directional and decorative lighting, trees and seating areas along with real time train information. DEVCO is developing the property.
The Gateway may have a new neighbor in the not too distant future. In April 2010 Mayor Jim Cahill announced plans for Wellness Plaza—a 12-story, 585,000 square foot mixed-use project located on a 1.6-acre site adjacent to the Ferren Mall, about a block from the New Brunswick Station. DEVCO is leading the development of this project. Wellness Plaza would bring to the city a full-service grocery store as well as the RWJ Fitness & Wellness Center and other offices for Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, a partner in the project. The project will promote wellness, broadly defined, by providing access to high quality, affordable and nutritious food that is often lacking in urban neighborhoods as well as to a fitness and aquatic center serving the city’s residents and visitors. Through a partnership with New Brunswick Public Schools, the pools in the privately managed RWJ Fitness & Wellness Center will be used for swimming instruction for all 6th grade students as part of the Physical Education curriculum.