In the same Camden neighborhood where federal marshals once warned a future governor it wasn’t safe to walk 30 yards to his car, Cooper University Health Care on Tuesday broke ground on a $3 billion expansion – the largest investment in Camden County’s history.

The construction will add three patient towers to Cooper’s downtown campus, expanding the region’s busiest trauma center from 660 beds to 745 private rooms. Five New Jersey governors – spanning four decades of leadership –gathered at Tuesday’s ceremony, underscoring the significance of the project, which supporters said represents another step in Camden’s transformation from one of America’s most dangerous cities to a growing medical and educational center.

The project was announced by Cooper in late 2022. The first phase hospital tower will use approximately $170 million in state grant money that Gov. Phil Murphy provided to the State’s three Level 1 trauma centers after the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen New Jersey’s emergency preparedness.

“The Cooper family’s little hospital is now the busiest level one trauma center in our state,” Murphy said at the groundbreaking, referencing the hospital’s earliest day when it had just 30 beds. “And the capacity these new towers will offer is going to help us and them meet current and projected demand, ensuring that New Jersey’s families will not have to face long wait times or seek care farther from home.”

The ceremony drew former governors Chris Christie, Jon Corzine, James McGreevey, and Tom Kean, along with Cooper Board Chairman George Norcross III, who has overseen much of the hospital’s expansion over the past two decades. Also in attendance were Cooper’s Co-CEOs Kevin O’Dowd and Dr. Anthony J. Mazzarelli and TV host and South Jersey native Kelly Ripa.

“If you look at the Camden Renaissance, which includes Cooper, the eds and meds corridor, Rutgers and Rowan University and a lot of other great institutions that didn’t exist here one time or another, much of this today is the responsibility and the great gratitude we have to Gov. Philip Murphy,” Norcross said.

He added that each of the state’s previous governors “played a significant role” in Cooper’s growth.

Christie recalled being warned by marshals about walking to his car when he was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and in Camden to meet with his staff for the first time in February 2002.

“When I became U.S. Attorney, Camden was called the murder capital of America,” Christie said. “From 2012 to 2024, when we started the Camden County Police Metro Division, the homicide rate in Camden is down 75%.”

Christie noted the hospital is now the number one trauma center in the state. “My goal is to make sure that less and less of that trauma has to do with violence,” he said. “And we’ve been able to accomplish that over the last 12 years – this trauma center is still here to deal with the violence that remains, but more importantly, to deal with all the other traumatic health problems that folks in Camden and New Jersey have that come here for extraordinary treatment.”

Corzine brought a unique perspective to the ceremony – that of a former patient. In April 2007, while he was governor, Corzine was in the front passenger seat when his state police vehicle crashed on the Garden State Parkway, just north of Atlantic City. The car had been traveling 91 mph and Corzine was not wearing his seatbelt. The crash broke the governor’s left leg, sternum, collarbone, multiple ribs and back.

Corzine was airlifted to Cooper and spent 17 days at the hospital.

“I have never been around people who care for others the way the staff, the nurses, doctors, and administrators at Cooper gave me care,” Corzine said. “It gave me so much inspiration because I knew they were giving the same kind of care to everybody who walks through that door.”

The first phase of Project Imagine includes construction of a 10-story, 35,000-square-foot hospital tower at MLK Boulevard and Haddon Avenue, directly across from MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper. The new building, scheduled for completion in 2028, will be connected to the cancer center by a bridge across Haddon Avenue.

That tower will have 125 private rooms with advanced technology, expanded women’s services including labor and delivery rooms, a new neonatal intensive care unit, additional operating rooms and a regional medical command center.

The project is expected to create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent healthcare positions. Cooper is partnering with the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters and construction manager Torcon Inc./P. Agnes Inc. on a job training program to ensure Camden residents benefit from these employment opportunities.