A vast property in suburban Middlesex County that was previously home to a state-run facility that served people with intellectual disabilities is under new ownership.
County deed records indicate that the site of the former Woodbridge Developmental Center around 1275 and 1289 Rahway Avenue in Woodbridge Township was sold by the Woodbridge Redevelopment Agency in September 2020 for $51 million. A copy of a deed that was published by the county government lists the buyer as Morris Avenel Associates Urban Renewal, LLC.
The LLC is listed as having the same address in Rutherford as The Morris Companies, a firm that describes itself online as an industrial and retail developer.
Located in the township’s Avenel section near the train station and East Jersey State Prison, the Woodbridge Developmental Center closed more than six years ago. The 25-building residential facility served 228 individuals in 2014 and had more than a thousand full-time employees, according to the website of the New Jersey Department of Human Services.
The exact plans for the premises are not yet clear and Jersey Digs has not yet received a response to a request for information that was submitted through The Morris Companies’ website last week. However, a January Middlesex County Development Review Committee staff report listed a warehouse as the proposed land use of the site.
