Page 17 - College Planning & Management, January 2018

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Unique in New Jersey, the $350 million Rowan Boulevard redevelopment project linking New Jersey’s Rowan University with Glassboro, NJ’s downtown retail district is redefining both the campus and the borough. The privately funded partnership between the university, developers, and the Borough of Glassboro has a singular goal: to create a quintessential college town. The one-third mile corridor is lined with shops, restaurants, and medical providers at street level with housing, offices, and classrooms on the floors above. Key anchors include the Rowan Boulevard Apartments complex for students, a Barnes & Noble collegiate superstore, and a Courtyard by Marriott hotel and conference center.
McHenry Architecture designed the build- ing, and Torcon, Inc. was the construction manager.
The boulevard projects respond to Rowan’s enrollment goals and the resulting housing demand. For example, two of the apartment complexes are run like others on the nearby campus, with students away for the summer, and a third residence is privately operated affiliated housing. Those options, along with Holly Pointe Commons, which is operated as a traditional residence hall, present a range of housing stock and rent levels for students—a diversified mix of price points.
A Recipe for Success
Thus, the universities are using vari- ous methods to get the biggest bang out of development projects, meeting large goals for advancing institutions and generating new life and value to surrounding com- munities.
Back at Stockton in Atlantic City, for example, Jackson notes that nearby proper- ties have been bought and renovated, and there are housing and retail projects un- derway: welcoming signs for the neighbor- hood and the new campus. In terms of the partnership that enabled the campus, he says in retrospect that “it was a complicat- ed deal to put together,” but the PPP “really opened the door for us to do this, and to do it on the scale we’re able to.” CPM
Scott Berman is a freelance writer with experience in educational topics.
completed in 2015 and 2016, and in August 2017 three Rowan Boulevard buildings opened—featuring classrooms, retail, apartments, and parking—with an additional residential and retail phase reportedly in the works.
Today, Rowan Boulevard, which erases what was the street grid of a residential neighborhood, includes high-rise student and other residences and office space with retail storefronts below, a large standalone
college bookstore, eateries, a large car parking structure, and a hotel.
At one end of the boulevard stands
the $145-million Holly Pointe Commons, opened in fall 2016 and, at 303,000 square feet, the largest building on campus. Owned by Rowan, the residence was its first PPP development, with the university teaming up with a branch of The Michaels Corporation and a subsidiary of Provident Resources Group, Inc. Philadelphia’s Erdy
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