Groundbreaking Celebrates Continued Healthcare Promise for Newarkers

By Anthony Birritteri, Editor-in-Chief On Oct 23, 2025

Ground was broken today to celebrate the multi-phase $1.8 billion redevelopment to modernize and expand the shared Rutgers Health Newark and University Hospital Campus.

University Hospital, the state’s only public and academic medical center and state-designated Level I Trauma Center for Northern New Jersey, opened in 1979 and has been relying on its aging infrastructure to meet the growing needs of the community it serves without any major capital investment since first opening its doors. The facility is also the principal teaching hospital of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and New Jersey Dental School, and other Newark-based medical education programs.

Kaitlan Baston, interim CEO and president of University Hospital, commented that the groundbreaking was not just a celebration of a construction project, but also about building upon history and the city’s mission of caring for its residents. “We are building innovation, world-class healthcare, and education in this city,” Baston said. “For Newark residents, this hospital is a place of healing and hope.”

Discussing the hospital and its relationship to it residents was Junius Williams, Newark historian and co-chairman of the original negotiating team that helped author the city’s medical school agreement in 1968.

At the podium, Williams recalled the names of his colleagues who helped fight for new housing and representation in the original hospital and medical school project. “This was a crucial time in Newark’s history,” Williams recalled. “Gov. Hughes announced one day in the Star-Ledger that there was going to be medical school in Newark and that 150 acres of land were needed.

“The people of Newark said, ‘No.’ In fact, we said ‘Hell no!’ There were demonstrations, takeovers, people went to jail, then there was a rebellion in 1967. At that point, government said, ‘Maybe we should sit down and talk about this medical school plan.’ We said, ‘OK.’ That is how we [developed] the negotiating team,” Williams said.

The team wanted housing on 63 acres of vacant land, the result of which was 900 units of subsidized moderate and low-income housing.

“Then we said we wanted jobs,” Williams recalled. “If you want to build a medical school, we want Black and Latino folks building the project. We also said, ‘You have to train them.’ That happened. Six hundred people were trained through the program.

“We also said we wanted Black and Latinos to learn medicine and dentistry at the medical school. We didn’t just want White folks. So as a result, the medical school in Newark today is ranked 3rd in terms of the number of Black students who attend medical school at the larger, integrated medical schools in America,” Williams said.

Finally, he said the hospital and medical school should be responsible for the healthcare of Newark’s citizens. “The quality of healthcare has increased and improved tremendously because of the hospital,” Williams said.

“The partnership that developed at that time is ongoing. It is never-ending,” Williams concluded.

Rutgers University President William Tate, an epidemiologist, said that today’s groundbreaking “is something far bolder than buildings. … We are here to tear something down. We are here to tear down disease, malady, and illnesses of every type. Right now, too many people carry the burden of disease,” he continued. “There are disparities with respect to health in every single way you think about it. It’s socially determined. … We act like, ‘Grandma got sick.’ Well, grandma got sick because she didn’t have what she needed. It’s called the social determinants of health. So, we are building something here today because we want to tear something down.”

Gov. Phil Murphy commented that the groundbreaking was about enormous opportunities for the future of the facility. “It will finally get the physical bones that it deserves,” he said. “The promise that healthcare professionals here have kept alive for decades will finally be matched by a physical plant that meets the moment.”

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