Long Branch Moving Police HQ, Court Onto Monmouth Medical Campus

LONG BRANCH, NJ — Last week, the city of Long Branch announced an ambitious — and unprecedented — new plan to relocate its police department and municipal court onto the campus of Monmouth Medical Center.

Monmouth Medical Center will be giving the city buildings or parcels of land somewhere in the area north or south of Lowden Court, said Long Branch business administrator George Jackson. He said he could not be specific about which properties yet as it has not been finalized.

The city plans to then renovate those buildings and convert them into a new Long Branch police station, municipal court, the city health department, plus some other municipal offices, such as records.

The move is far off, and will not be complete for about another two years, he estimated.

"We're looking at some empty buildings or vacant lots around the hospital," said Jackson. "There are some buildings we feel could be rehabbed quite nicely. These are buildings and land that are very recognizable as belonging to Monmouth Medical Center that will be taken over by the city of Long Branch. There is a need for a new police station and it is very cramped where the current health department and other city offices are."

Long Branch is currently renting space for its municipal court in an office building at 5th Avenue and Broadway. There is no official Long Branch municipal court building.

Also, the city did an audit in the past several years and found the current Long Branch police headquarters are aging, cramped and insufficient to meet the needs of the department in the future.

"Our police and town court are really in need of a new home," said Jackson. "Plus the offices of birth certificates, records would be moved there."

The move is unusual and means Long Branch will become the first city in New Jersey to have its police department, municipal court and health department located on the same property as a hospital.

Long Branch will also open a new office of "Health Monitoring and Telecommunications Training Center" at the site, said Long Branch Mayor John Pallone. This office will be in a separate building than the new police headquarters and municipal court.

It is part of the city's bigger goal of turning the hospital campus into a hub of municipal life in Long Branch, particularly as it is located just steps away from the Long Branch train station.

"Our goal is to achieve a town center feel at the Long Branch campus and a transit village that leverages the close proximity to the train station," said Bill Arnold, who was just named CEO of RWJBarnabas Health, the hospital network Monmouth Medical is part of.

"All of this was in response to the pandemic," said Jackson. "We had to test people and give them vaccines and we found we didn't have the space to give vaccines in city buildings. We also had a lot of residents, particularly senior residents, unable to go online and sign up for the vaccine. So we had to help them and we didn't have space for that. We want to have space to teach our seniors how to use computers, and a health screening space for seniors.

"This is in case, God forbid, we have another pandemic," he said.

The proximity to Monmouth Medical Center is very deliberate.

"We think it's be a great thing to be located right there next to them," said the city planner.

How much will Long Branch pay for this? The land for the new police department/municipal court/health department will be donated by Monmouth Medical Center. However, there will be other costs.

Long Branch was given $12.5 million from the federal government through the second COVID stimulus package passed under President Joe Biden. Jackson said the city would likely tap into that to pay for construction costs.

"We do want to avail ourselves of that," said Jackson. "Those are funds that we think would be suitable for some of these projects, since this is COVID-related. Guidelines have not been restricted on use of the funds."

Related: Long Branch To Get $12.5 Million In 2nd COVID Relief Act (March 12)

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