[Music] hello and welcome to around the best town I'm your host Woodbridge Mayor John McCormack today we're joined by Ron
simonini who's an executive vice president with Jones Lang Lal we're joined by Kevin Martinez who is a portfolio growth manager with hackin saac Meridian health and of course you all know this young lady to my left carollyn erck who this normally would be a greenable Woodbridge show where we're combining it with around the best town
and we're kind of co-hosting it yes so why we're here tonight is to talk about hackin sack ring Health that's one of the biggest things to ever happen to Woodbridge Township in our history which is hackensac taking over a quar million square fet in a brand new building in the metrop Park office complex the train
station complex and it's huge for for this Township it includes almost 200,000 ft of office and actually 60,000 plus of a medical center which I'm going to let people explain but it is phenomenal for this Township because it's the corporate
headquarters for hackin slack Midian Health which is the largest healthc care provider in the state of New Jersey so let me start with Ron as the guy who the realtor kind of put this whole thing together uh tell me about the project so it's a big team at jll and that while I was was part of this thing since the
beginning I want to give credit to those guys this really the Genesis of this is in the Murphy Administration excuse me um wanting to repurpose its train stations wanting to activate the train stations New Uses insightful kind of
Redevelopment programs and they made uh Metro Park Station available and three uh developers came together and formed a team and they submitted a vision for it and it was the winning vision and a few months later uh working with hackin sack
Meridian it was clear that they wanted to move their headquarters office someplace that had uh sort of Transit Village values to it and this was waiting for us and so um a lot of pieces to it you have to figure out the financing which Incorporated the Aspire
grant program obviously the municipality has an interest in the site NJ trans has an interest in the site and so blending all those things together and coming up with the Right Mix uh took about a year and um here we are ready to open maybe in January January and this is a
spirited competition there were four bids four serious bids I know Carol represented the town not with a vote on the committee but with input uh so did mareski our planning director and that was an exciting process it was it was great to read every all of the bids and
to listen to all the reports when we went through it and we sat through it we didn't know we weren't going to get a vote but we would have voted for you oh yeah so you know jll was is a friend to all the developers who participated my team was uh with the door team Deno Onyx
and Russo right and they've uh each got different experience actually in the township already and um you know we obviously felt very comfortable with the with the environment here and you guys have been terrific people at envisioning the right things for the municipality giving people a chance to bring their
ideas to the table and and that I think was the Hallmark of this thing was a lot ofle cation from the very beginning did your firm represent other developers with different people I don't think that we had any Brokers on this because the in the contest between the developers to get the job there wasn't really a
brokerage role there okay um but all the developers who participated are in some way affiliated with jll and I got to tell you that my position of this whole thing was I didn't love it in the beginning because it was going it it does include a a residential component but I was afraid of it being an
apartment complex with an office building and now it's an office building with a small apartment complex and the office building is run by hacken sack meran health and that's serious so Kevin you're essentially um a key player in that whole process uh tell
me start tell us what's in the building what's going to be there right so I mean the first three floors are going to be our health and wellness center um which for us getting back to our roots of healthcare originally our corporate offices were always located within our Healthcare offices and and this is a way for us to kind of get back to that that
root core to kind of who we are you know running Healthcare um and and so the first three floors will have Imaging ambulatory um a retail pharmacy as well and and and a whole slew of other doctor's offices doctor's offices surger center right uh there's no surgery
there's surgical Specialties will be in the building so they will be able to um to see patients there as well there's around a 100 exam rooms total in the whole building uh so over 40 uh doctors and over a hundred uh healthc Care Professionals will be located in the
first three floors uh you know working weekends and really opening up those services to the community uh within the rest of the building there are four floors where we are relocating our current three separate Corporate Offices into one single location again bringing everyone back together Under One Roof um
and we're really excited about it we're really excited about being in Woodbridge and and moving locations uh down the street to a train station where we can have our team members get their much more easily and and while patients in Woodbridge will benefit from our services being there patients from all
over will be able to use our services as well through the train station it's amazing how aligned the things that are important to the hospital are with the things that are important to the municipality right uh the distance from New York and Philadelphia very key for both of us um the opportunity to be
among a a place where there's so many great Sports Services restaurants hotels all the things that you need to run a worldclass headquarters office and all the things that you need to service a a set of patients that has diverse uh
requirements and needs we have JFK uh not very far from this site uh full care acute care facility hospital and it's just not enough the growth in that business and the growth in the needs is going to continue for the foreseeable future and
being at a train station where people can make their health care decisions differently than they have um it just goes to show nobody could have figured that hackin sack was going to end up taking the site when the Murphy Administration made it available but when you put something out there you get a lot of good ideas and this is the
first of its kind ambulatory Center at a Transit facility in the country yes it's the first Health and Wellness Center at a major Transit Hub in the nation uh which we're really proud of and excited about and hoping that a lot of other folks including our own uh you know team members can kind of emulate that for the
future it's it's all about accessibility JFK Hospital Edison which is right outside our border on the other side of the Border R Bay and pambo is right there so you've got a presence in Woodbridge already it's a very vast Hospital Healthcare Network um probably
the largest um property user in the state and certainly the most active right now um you've got another first though I think it's also the first he Healthcare headquarters at a train station too I I believe so yeah one one of if not the
yes yeah now both of you were at the state of the township last week where I thought the biggest announcement was going to be and I spent about two and a half pages on hackin sack M Health talking about everything a quar million square feet of office space with with
the big Medical Center in it right Metro Park and you got upstage by a grocery store such a good grocery store though so folks we you probably know if you you know if you're anything on social media or YouTube or all that kind of stuff uh Trader Joe's is coming to Woodbridge
right across route one from Woodbridge Center it's I say the Bed Bath and Beyond site but when people say that they think of the site on further down Route One South on the parkway but it's not that they moved and then they closed so it's right next to Raymore Flanigan
in the Best Buy um uh retail mall and that's uh that's just upstage you know a quar million square feet or a 50,000 ft you know grocery store you you got beat man I thought Carn was going to jump the state was at the back of the presentation and
she was ready she jumping up well you know what we're going to do our best to do you crowd here we'll try to compete with the Trader Joe's can freak out K but we'll have a thousand jobs in our place right wow uh definitely a lot of jobs moving into the area that currently
aren't there no butchers but no you never know you are going to have a uh a residential piece and mixed juice and restaurants and um maybe some retail that the people going on the train or the people who live there or the people that work there can use I always um
metrop Park needed an uplift and we all know that and you're being there as part of the project you're going to make it look better feel better and being the second largest station in the state next to Newark is something we should be
proud of and you're bringing the pride to it so um it it's it's activation I think it was in the waiting what's the so in the residential building we also took office space in the Residential Building you want to talk about that but
yeah so so we're working through some programming there as well you know with such a big building you'd be surprised we ran out of space right and and there's always more needs for healthcare and so we're kind of working through that programming at the moment and seeing what that perfect fit is to kind of work with the hospitals that are
nearby and our current location at our Metropark building um to to make sure they marry and mix in a nice way that really the community is going to be served and and meet most of their needs to really finish that One-Stop shop model that we were looking to make in the in the metrop park building and one
of the things we like the best about this and I'll let Carol take over is the Aspire Grant which requires you to spend money in the community you're moving into as part of getting the tax credit financing from the Eda take that away car yeah so um it is we I think it is
like the biggest bonus that we have have coming from this project and it's astounding um from the aspired grant so you are getting tax credits but as one of the um things that you need to do to get these tax credits is provide a
community benefit and being that your health center it's a Health Community benefit and um you want to give the numbers yeah so I mean uh we could Jump Right In we've committed to giving about $350,000 annually over the next 10 years
uh to multiple those watching at home that's $3.5 million yes yes um over the next 10 years and and we're really excited about it um it'll give us an opportunity to bring our services into the community outside of just our building alone and and really meet the needs of of what the
folks living here you know kind of have which you'll first get by doing that Community needs assessment which no go ahead I jumped on it I'm sorry go it's great we'll first find out what we need and you'll talk to all the people in town in the healthare field and in the town government and the school system and you'll find out what we need and
then go from there yeah absolutely and and we've done Community needs Assessments in the past but more County based right not as localized and so this one is specific to just Woodbridge and we'll be able to focus on kind of all the key points that that um the the specific people here really have right
and and their concerns we'll be able to address them figure them out and then create a plan to go meet those needs and and and really give healthare to the people we did a um one of the projects that we worked on and I've shared this with you
is for sustainable Jersey we did an assessment so that we could become a health gold town and I think as usual we were probably the first town with gold in health but we did that assessment and we were we learned so much and one of
the things that we learned was that we had areas of the town where people were more people were going to the emergency rooms than in New Brunswick or Perth uy and when somebody's going to an emergency room it means they don't have
a doctor right and you need to fix that and so it it taught us a lot so and that's just one thing one thing you can learn from an assessment so um and out of that we got the health mobile and
that's part of what our partnership is going to be going forward do you want to talk about that a little bit yeah absolutely I mean one of the the things that we worked on is is figuring out what the supplies are in that mobile health unit and then kind of working over that 10e span to make sure that it's fully equipped with all the
supplies and equipment that you would need so we've dedicated a certain amount of money uh yearly to just that alone um and again it's it's to support a lot of the amazing things that you're already doing and you guys had a mobile health unit that we used to bring every now and then to like the apartment complexes and
the neighborhoods in the underserved areas it was it was uh Ron Bay or JFK as hack even before you were hackin sack probably but those hospitals were big Partners in that and they would bring the the mobile health unit and the moms would bring the kids or dads would bring the kids and like you say many times it
was the first time they even saw a healthcare professional if they're four or five years old you have sometimes take the services to the people and that is one of the services that you are offering absolutely because you are talking about going to areas where um
people can't go to a doctor right and and like you said the emergency room thing right we're we're finding those needs and we're looking to go address them directly in the community so that folks don't have to go to the emergency room we can act as their doctor in those instances and also we're adding a lot of doctors in the region to begin with too
which is I'm sure is a big help right and that's the nice thing about the program is over the 10 years you can adjust it so if year one there's a priority year two it's a different priority because the amount of money is fixed and because the provider has their business realm that they already are in
you have the benefit of being able to indicate where you want that that to go is I I think really one of the nice parts of the Aspire grant program honestly is that it assures that the community gets not just the economic activity but the Civic and cultural activity that that also is should be a
part of uh you know such a broad Vision type of program very you know there's not very many people who could take advantage of it the way that Woodbridge can right um because you need the scale you know what I mean you need the community you need you have a health department of your own that's you know
Excell award-winning so you know you you've got a lot of advantages that make everything work better talk about that car because we have a whole group of nurses and a Whole Health Department and an environmental division and a whole lot of different things uh and we went out to talk to them I'm talking about
how they're how hackin sack's professionals are going to kind of complement what we do not replace them but complement right and and we you talked this while we were waiting to start the show we talked about how you you go in and actually meet with the department and find out what it is that
they're looking for from you because they're the ones who are going to work with you to provide these services but um it was really interesting when um the mayor and I first went out to meet with them and they were all nervous that you were coming in and taking their jobs and
we told them no you're going to be partners they could not have been more excited about this going forward it's just going to be a benefit for everybody and wait till you meet the people who work there they're phenomenal we have a great and aside
from the Department of Health we have a health task force which is made up from some of the people from the Department of Health um some of our um residents some of our local doctors and they also help us with making our goals and what
we're going to do so there's a lot of interest and we have a councilman who runs the mayor's Wellness committee and uh we just have so many people focused in on health and of course we always get the healthy Community Awards awards yes
we learned a lot just from that meeting with the nurses I was amazed at how unbelievably smart and dedicated they were you like I see them but not ever in an environment where you sit down and really talk to them see them at the healthmobile see them at the health fair
see them at they take a table along with the library and all the different groups and all the different things we do all over town you see them and you meet them but we sat down and talk about what they do and it was amazing they are great they great yeah and I think they I
sensed which is why we went out to meet with them I sensed that his word was getting out about this grant that they're said okay wait they're getting nurses well we're nurses and we're employed here and we have nice job and benefits and what are they doing bringing in new nurses to replace us so we said let's get the heck out there and
let them know that you're fine and we love everything you do right this is going to supplement you know what's help us maybe get to the homebound it's going to maybe help us with the schools you know supplement the School nurses there's all kinds of things we can do and all the Outreach
that you're going to you're I think your Outreach your digital stuff is a whole step higher than what we've been able to do and I'm looking forward to that right I mean we always feel like that's a very important part right is you can have the resources right but everyone needs to know about them and so we're really
dedicated to from digital to you know any any kind of area finding what we can do to make sure that the people of this town know the services that we're bringing and where they can find them and the Grant's not the end of the collaboration and the connection point between the municipality and the and the
hospital like in other towns we have programs in in most of the places where we have even midsize offices there's some kind of community engagement and that I think would happen again here and you've got I mean that's going to be you know healthc care is one of these things
by being the latest one in you the what the services going to be offered in the ambulatory Center are going to be top top notch like the technology and and and the protocols are all going to be the very top of the industry so it's it's a really great asset and you're
going to have all the equipment you know we've all been watching it being constructed and how thick are the floors that 18 inch I mean imagine that like that's solid and how fast is that building going every time you drive by
it there's another floor there I know and I understand your president goes there every morning to check it out yeah we uh a lot of people are really excited especially now when it's pretty high up right they're moving it so people go there every day yeah we're excited about no all of a sudden you that that site
looks a little smaller now you know what I mean for years and years you had Acres of EMP parking and flat surface which doesn't really make any sense for a train station to have that but there's a big building going up there and what I really like is I don't get the feeling that we're ever going to say
hey can you cover this and anybody from hackin sack's going to say no it's not in the Grant I don't feel like we can ask anything you know I feel like we're going to have the kind of relationship where um sure it's not in this grant we'll do that we'll work this out and if you need this we'll get it done yeah and
I feel comfortable comfortable about about that the Grant's only a small portion of of our relationship with this with this town right and it's a small portion of what we want to be involved in in the community so while we're really excited about the grant we're really excited about all the other things that we're going to do as well in relationship with you and like I think
Carol said the Outreach you have in Communications is going to really compliment we're good at that right but you it's your field so you're better and you can reach people we can't and you know who they are in many cases through Kennedy and and Ron Bay so I think
that's going to be invaluable to us as getting getting the word out through you that for people we can't reach and and the services that we offer can be improved because we'll learn from you for instance as great as our health mobile is I mean a couple of weeks ago it was on Main Street and there were
literally people in line waiting to go in it it's just popular but you know they try to do tracking on there and they have a computer system and I can't wait till you guys get your eyes on it because I know that's something that we can be doing better m I mean they did a
great job of working it out but we need to you know how many times have you been here before what did you get the last time you came because we now have some seniors who are regulars every time we go to a certain senior center it's the same one check in their blood pressure every time they go to the senior center
when the when the health unit is there right they look forward to it and they have a calendar where they're going to be where and people go they're at supermarkets right they're they're everywhere and they probably go to Metro Park hopefully so uh and I get the impression that you're going to be
involved in the community outside of just the you know the the healthcare effort you know you'll be on the Chamber of Commerce you'll be on the Woodbridge Economic Development Corporation you'll be out there like Linda Mela who's been with Ron Bay and JFK for a long time was
always that person representing those hospitals and was very active and I think I feel like you're going to continue that with with your representatives and and be a part of the fabric of the Woodbridge corporate community no look just if you think about it right the Onyx people are here
the Russa people are here the Deno people are the most generous among all of us and want to be involved in the communities that they're in they they offices in the metal ends quite close to mine and they're always involved in stuff then you've already got some of the healthcare institutions from hack
saak M and are already contributing and volunteering and participating in Civic things in the town now there's a whole another layer of Executives who come another layer of doctors who come that are that are here and obviously a lot of these people are going to end up living
in wridge because if you think like well first of all you have 200 apartments right next door so those people live in Woodbridge and they would be expected to consume their healthare you know nearby um but there's going to be a lot of people who are currently commuting from
other places who will look at this and say hey this is the town I want to live in mhm and that's it's really a great Dynamic so I think there are a lot of layers of people jll has done stuff here we participated in a panel on your Economic Development Forum last year and
we learned the market here in a different way than we knew it before it's a worldwide company with lots of resources but there's nothing like working closely with people who run a town to figure out what it is that you can do to help and uh that doesn't happen from afar simply putting a sign
up on the side of a building and saying you know for rent it happens when you're thinking through through how the town works better as a result of what these guys are doing which it was a really terrific process I think I really enjoyed it it didn't feel like there was any friction in it and that's unusual
sometimes right yeah it wouldn't smooth the development process was fantastic um I I hope you guys feel the same way definely feel the same way yes you got the right people Deno and Russo and Onyx are the best around MH right you know they won the competition it was very
spirited very intense and they they want it and that's they want it because of because they're so good and your construction company that's um terminal that's terminal terminal that's denal oh that's unbelievable when we drive by there on a
Saturday they're working yeah no it's not it's not normal yeah you usually you're talking about a month into construction you're usually talking about the delays right a month into this construction we had already cut five months off of the construction SCH
so you had a 14mon construction schedule that got cut right I'm sorry a 19mon construction schedule that got cut to 14 months I bet a lot of that had to do with the pressure that hmh was putting on them we didn't really need to get much they just uh they they Thrive
whenever they're they want they definely want it's their MO so start something else and make so weal you if you heard it in my speech I talked about how um the the money from this project the tax money is going to go for a brand new school and I talked about how the kids in Hope blown
in casb which is kind of the area you're going to be looking at anyway um to try to get Services there but now those kids will have a school in their neighborhood that's being done with with hacken sack Marine Health's money that's a nice like well we like hearing you say that but
really it's your way we're the guest in the town we're paying in the tax because we want to be in the tax I you've provided the but you got to take a little more credit project it's a $78 million project on one end and then you're providing you know $97 million in
taxes over 30 years on the other end so it's a perfect marriage that we identify 78 plus interest on the the debt equals the 97 that you're going to provide it's got to be good for the company to know that you're literally not just giving
money to the town and taxes they're using it for a school for kids that they don't have they drive a half an hour plus on a bus each way every day it does feel a lot better than filling in some Gap because the municipality is poorly managed for sure but you know you got
back to your aspire Grant I mean doesn't the Aspire Grant solve a lot of problems right because we could not have done this economically it didn't make sense to do this as a new construction project without the state saying you know what that's transformative and we got a
transformative Grant and this is the definition of a transformative project absolutely and so you know to bring that here um and then be able to the resources to do the community benefits to do you know a legitimate pilot and make sure the town is rewarded by that
or supported by that um the fact that the Aspire Grant is there to do that it was $114 million it's a lot of money lot of money so we got about two minutes left car you want to wrap up anything uh before we close it's one of the best things that has happened to the township
of Woodbridge is to have the hospital and to all the services that you're bringing to us and um we're just will'll help you all along the way at in the development and one Z buildup we're there to continue to be your partner and
we'll do all we can to drive people to there yes some of the services you're going to pay for we can work with you to provide them there so our people will be forced to get there and learn the place and see what doctors are there any final closing words from the two of you about the whole project we got one minute to go got to be you about the health system
I mean we're we're really excited to to work with you the mayor and and the town here obviously and you know we really feel like we're bringing the services that are not only needed but uh you know not always provided in a lot of the areas and so we're really going to have a whole One-Stop shop here at at our new
Metro hmh metr Park location where everyone can get most of their needs and and and if they're not getting their needs there we'll be able to refer them to a very close place where they can get their needs there so we're really it's it's a full picture that we're we're trying to provide here and we're excited about it well thanks you we can't wait
we love working with you guys you're easy to talk to you're easy to deal with you're easy to negotiate with uh this is going to be great as Carol said one of the best things to ever happen in Woodbridge Township is hackin sack Muran Health opening up their New Jersey corporate headquarters right here in the metrop Park train station in the eand
section of Woodbridge Township so this has been around the best town John McCormick Carol erck joined by Ryan Simon CI and Kevin Martinez Ron from Jones Lang Lal Kevin from hackin saac muring Health thank you for watching folks
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