Rutgers Newark Opens $59M Life Sciences II Center

NEWARK, NJ — Hurrah for science, Rutgers Newark. That’s the cheer that went up at the university’s campus last week when administrators unveiled the long-heralded, $59 million “Life Sciences Center II” building.

The five-floor facility - decades in the making – will serve as the hub to the Newark campus’ sciences quad, a “multi-building” and a teaching and research complex for the life sciences, administrators said.

Some of the goodies contained within the 85,000-square-foot building include:

• A 100-seat lecture hall with “smart classroom” capability
• Modern teaching laboratories for upper-level chemistry and biology courses
• Chemistry and biology research laboratories
• A “state-of-the-art” imaging and electron-microscopy facility housed 27 feet below ground level

Rutgers University previously stated that the idea for a Life Sciences II building had been in the air at Rutgers-Newark since 2001, when then Provost Norman Samuels drafted a master plan for the Life Sciences at Rutgers-Newark that would expand those facilities over the short- and medium-term.

The result was Life Sciences I, a 67,000-square-foot, glass-and-limestone facility at 225 University Avenue that opened in 2006 and houses chemistry and biology research labs, offices and chemistry teaching labs and classrooms.

Life Science I’s north façade was left unadorned, anticipating the addition of Life Sciences II right next to it. But that project stayed dormant for several years until it got a jumpstart when New Jersey voters approved a $750 million state bond-issue referendum in November 2012 for construction at the state’s colleges and universities.

It was the first time in 24 years that the state borrowed for college construction projects, according to Rutgers.

Rutgers University stated:

“When the bond issue passed, the plan was immediately submitted to Rutgers President Robert Barchi’s Capital Planning Committee, which reviewed eligible projects for funding. In February 2013, the Rutgers Board of Governors made its official ask to the state for $410 million for construction and renovation of academic facilities, listing Life Sciences II among its top three priorities… Two months later, Gov. Chris Christie submitted a list with more than $1.27 billion in higher-education construction projects to the Legislature for its approval. Rutgers received $357 million, with $67 million in additional monies earmarked for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), much of which Rutgers was absorbing. In that package was $59 million for Rutgers-Newark’s Life Sciences II building.”

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Photos: Rutgers Newark, used with permission