The Hub @ New Brunswick has been in the works for some time.

Leaders at the New Brunswick Development Corp. and Rutgers University have longed dreamed of creating an environment where technology and innovation could thrive in a community that resembled Kendall Square in Boston.

And while a marketing agent, JLL, was announced more than three years ago and the land across from the train station for the 1.7 million-square-foot mixed-use development project was cleared in the past 18 months, the transformative project got a boost in energy Monday afternoon, when Gov. Phil Murphy announced the state is fully behind the project in a meeting with dozens of top leaders in the state.

“For too long, New Jersey has been left out of the growing national innovation economy,” Murphy said.