Is an era of corporate migration to New Jersey suburbs over? Nokia Bell Labs move to New Brunswick suggests so
Nokia Bell Labs dumps ‘obsolete’ suburban office for gleaming 10-story New Brunswick tower
- AT&T built its Bell Labs facility in 1941 on what was rural property in Murray Hill.
- Nokia which now owns Bell Labs, was looking for a new space that is more “collaborative.”
- It found its spot in a 350,000-square-foot New Brunswick building scheduled to be completed in 2028.
By Michael L. Diamond, Asbury Park Press
NEW BRUNSWICK – Nokia Bell Labs will move its storied research facility from its sprawling suburban campus in Murray Hill to a gleaming 10-story office and laboratory being built for it as part of the Helix project here, company officials said Monday.
The 350,000-square-foot building, scheduled to be completed in 2028, is expected to house 1,000 employees. And it gives New Jersey a major coup. Nokia had looked at some 25 sites, mainly in the Northeast, before settling on the urban setting of New Brunswick.
The site, executives said, had everything they were looking for: the chance to occupy a lab built to their own specifications; the ability to attract employees from nearby universities; and easy access thanks to the New Brunswick train station across the street.
Executives were joined for the announcement by Gov. Phil Murphy, as well as federal, state and local officials at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, a short walk from the Helix project that’s underway.
“The (Murray Hill) campus, while I think it served us really well for 80 years, is not really well fit to bring us into the next, I’m going to say 80 years,” said Severine Siebert, vice president of strategy and technology operations for Nokia. “We want to have a space that’s more collaborative because we truly believe that collaboration will bring our innovation forward.”
It came as New Jersey’s economy undergoes a transformation. Corporate giants that in the 20th century flocked to the Garden State suburbs, where their workers could toil away largely in isolation, need less space in the digital age — and closer ties to colleges and highly skilled workers.
“These were facilities built by corporate giants,” Rutgers University economist James W. Hughes said. “They’re just obsolete now.”
Nokia sets sights on New Brunswick
Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill is the largest of eight research facilities operated by the Finland-based telecommunications company, conducting research in everything from how to expand on the limits of optical systems to new innovations such as artificial intelligence.
The company began looking to replace its Murray Hill campus five years ago. It considered renovating the building, but decided it would make more sense to search for a new location, Siebert said.
It eventually settled on Helix, a three-building complex on the site of a former parking garage that New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill and Gov. Murphy envisioned as a center for high-tech and life sciences research in hopes that New Jersey could stem the tide of highly paid employees moving to hotspots such as Silicon Valley, New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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