Chris Paladino sums it up this way: New Brunswick’s ability to land a state-of-the-art $171.8 million performing arts center — one of the biggest public-private partnership deals in state history — is aided by government’s ability to be flexible and helpful when it comes to financing.

“This is one of the things we have going for us in New Brunswick that separates us from other places,” Paladino, the president of the New Brunswick Development Corp., told ROI-NJ. “We are aided by institutions at a variety of levels, from state government to the county, to the city to a group of nonprofits, to Rutgers. We get them all on the same page so that they do what they need to when they need to do it.

“I think it is a testament to the process that has been going on in New Brunswick for 25 years.”