Cooper University Health Care held a groundbreaking ceremony 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.

The expansion project, first announced by Cooper University Health Care in late 2022, will dramatically enhance Cooper’s main campus to meet the current and future projected demand at Cooper University Hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper.

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 (RMCC) and additional surge capacity to bolster New Jersey’s emergency infrastructure.

The first phase of the project is a 10-story, 35,000 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.

The project is expected to create thousands of construction jobs and, upon completion, hundreds of permanent positions in healthcare 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.