Skanska Wins $134M Hospital Construction Job in Hopewell, NJ

Hopewell, NJ – Skanska, an $18 billion international general contractor based in Stockholm, has won a $134 million contract to build a two-building, 968,760-square-foot hospital complex in Hopewell, NJ for Capital Health. Construction industry sources say it is too early to mark this contract as the beginning of a possible industry rebound.

However, they note Capital Health has set aside another $117 million for expansion purposes after the new 237-bed hospital is completed in October 2011.

The hospital will replace Capital Health’s 112-year-old Mercer Hospital in Trenton, NJ.

The Hopewell hospital will offer services for maternal child health, cardiology, dialysis, trauma cases, oncology, orthopaedics, mental health and infectious diseases.

The two buildings will be linked at the floor level with a public atrium and lobby area.

New Jersey state officials approved the Certificate of Need for the new hospital in December 2006. At that time, hospital officials had planned to build the facility on a 32-acre site the hospital owned in Lawrence Township. Since then, however, a 165-acre site became available in nearby Hopewell Township.

That site, owned by Merrill Lynch, was already zoned for hospital use. It is on the east side of Scotch Road between the Interstate 95 interchange and Merrill Lynch’s Southfields Office Park. Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch in December 2008.

Skanska USA Building Inc., headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, will oversee the hospital project. In 2008, the USA unit, with 4,700 employees, posted total sales of $3.69 billion.

The parent company, with 56,000 employees worldwide, recorded 2008 sales of $17.53 billion.

Hopewell, NJ has a storied past. It was the town nearest to the estate owned by Col. Charles A. Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh in nearby East Amwell, NJ. The Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son, Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., was kidnapped from their home on Mar. 1, 1932 and later found murdered near Hopewell.

Bruno Hauptmann, a local carpenter, was convicted of the bludgeon slaying and electrocuted on April 3, 1936 — four years after the abduction. Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end.