Three years ago, officials at Rutgers University and RWJBarnabas Health publicly outlined their plans to create the first hospital exclusively dedicated to cancer care in the state.
But, the space they were eyeing for the $750 million project — a tract of 1.6 acres on Somerset Street across from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick — was already occupied.
It was owned by the city’s school district. The school on the site, called Lincoln Annex, enrolled about 550 fourth through eighth graders and had been recently renovated by the district.
Undeterred by some local opposition, hospital officials made the district a land-exchange offer. Sell us the land and, in return, we’ll build you a brand new replacement school somewhere else, the hospital offered.
Now, the new $55 million school is completed and ready to open to students on Thursday.
“Just to think that,…
