Christie celebrates College Avenue redevelopment groundbreaking with Rutgers
With red shovels and scarlet pride, Gov. Chris Christie, Rutgers President Robert L. Barchi, New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill and New Brunswick Development Corporation President Christopher Paladino broke ground yesterday for the College Avenue Redevelopment Initiative at Seminary Place.
Since coming into office, Christie said he has tried to make restructuring, strengthening and promoting the state’s higher education system a top priority.
In this year’s budget, the state has increased spending on higher education by $34 million, he said.
“After decades of politics getting in the way of desperately needed rethinking and restructuring of our higher education system, Republicans and Democrats work together in a bipartisan way to take higher education in New Jersey to the next level by completing the broadest and boldest restructuring of New Jersey’s higher education landscape in our history,” he said.
New Jersey voters approved a $750 million bond referendum last November, investing the money in expansions and upgrades for the state’s colleges and universities. The state has not made this type of investment in higher education in 25 years, Christie said.
“I’m proud that this administration and our partners in the legislature and, at the end, the voters in the state of New Jersey have decided that that is an investment that is not only worth doing, but necessary for us to move forward economically.”