CAMDEN - Cooper University Health Care held a groundbreaking ceremony Jan. 28 on the first phase of a transformative $3 billion expansion of its Health Sciences Campus in Camden.
When complete, Cooper’s “Project Imagine” will mark the largest building investment in Camden County’s history. Four past New Jersey governors, including Gov. Chris Christie, joined Gov. Phil Murphy, television star and supporter Kelly Ripa and Cooper Chairman George Norcross III and other Cooper officials for the groundbreaking.
“Cooper’s investment of $3 billion for its future growth will be a transformative investment in the future of Camden and South Jersey,” Norcross said. “This project reinforces Cooper’s long-standing commitment to delivering extraordinary health care, driving economic growth, and creating new opportunities for the people of the City of Camden and the region. Cooper’s success, and the Camden renaissance, could not have happened without the strong and uninterrupted support of Governors Kean, McGreevey, Corzine, Christie and Governor Murphy – thank you for all you have done.”
“Families have entrusted Cooper with loved ones in their time of need for more than a century. Today’s groundbreaking helps ensure Cooper can continue serving families in Camden and beyond with the same high-quality standard of care it is known for,” Murphy said. “Our Administration has made ensuring New Jersey’s critical health services remain available and accessible a key focus, and these upgrades will ensure this hospital can continue meeting the region’s growing needs.”
Cooper’s ambitious campus plan is designed to address the clinical, ancillary, education and research, and support service needs of Cooper’s rapidly growing academic medical center campus in Camden. The first phase hospital tower will use approximately $170 million in state grant money the Murphy Administration provided to the state’s three Level 1 trauma centers after the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen New Jersey’s emergency preparedness.
Project Imagine includes:
• Three new patient towers: Accommodating up to 745 all-private inpatient beds.
• Enhanced surgical and emergency services: Expanded surgical and interventional capacity, a state-of-the-art emergency department, and a bridge connecting to MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper.
• Regional Emergency Preparedness: A new regional medical coordination center and additional surge capacity to bolster New Jersey’s emergency infrastructure.
The first phase of the project is a 10-story, 345,000 square foot hospital tower on the corner of MLK and Haddon Avenue directly across from the MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper. The new building will be linked to the cancer center with a bridge over Haddon Avenue and is slated for completion by 2028.
Tower A will include:
• 125 acuity-adaptable private rooms incorporating advanced technology to meet diverse patient needs.
• Expanded women’s services featuring labor and delivery rooms and a new neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
• Additional operating rooms, increasing surgical capacity to meet growing demand.
• Education and research spaces with a modern medical library and learner-focused spaces to support Cooper’s academic mission.
• Emergency preparedness infrastructure including a state-of-the-art medical command center to serve the region.
“Today, we celebrate the incredible professionals who have served at Cooper over the past 138 years. Cooper has evolved into an elite, nationally recognized academic health system, and this next step forward would not be possible without the unwavering dedication and commitment of our team members,” said Kevin O’Dowd, JD, co-CEO of Cooper.
The project is expected to create thousands of construction jobs and, upon completion, hundreds of permanent positions in health care and related fields. Cooper is partnering with the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters and its construction manager, Torcon Inc./P. Agnes Inc., to ensure that Camden residents benefit from these employment opportunities through a unique job training program.
Cooper University Health Care is the largest employer in both Camden city and Camden County. In 2024, Cooper was recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best-in-State Employers for the fourth consecutive year, highlighting its commitment to employee satisfaction and workplace excellence.
This expansion also further strengthens Cooper’s ongoing contributions to Camden’s revitalization efforts. As a regional health care leader, Cooper has been committed to helping city residents lead healthy, full lives and has helped spearhead Camden’s turnaround.
In addition to dramatically expanding its operations and expertise in recent years with the addition of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Cooper dramatically improved EMS service in the city when it took the service over in 2016.
