Jones Lang LaSalle


Redesigning Rutgers

Rutgers University’s on-again, off-again plans to overhaul the College Avenue campus may be on again.

Bank of America is scheduled to present a "major grant" to the state university this morning to help fund a redesign of the heart of the New Brunswick campus, school officials said. Rutgers President Richard McCormick will accept a check at an 11:15 a.m. press conference in Winants Hall.

McCormick first suggested a campus makeover last year. Early plans included closing College Avenue to traffic and creating a mile-long pedestrian greenway from the Raritan River to the New Brunswick train station.

Last fall, Rutgers kicked off an international design competition. Five design firms were given $50,000 to come up with a new look for the 69-acre campus in downtown New Brunswick. The plans were to include a new academic building, new dorms and a new transportation hub.

But McCormick abruptly postponed the competition in April, just a few days before the five finalists were due to unveil their proposals at a campus ceremony. The president said it would be "inappropriate and insensitive" to go ahead with the redesign competition while Rutgers and the rest of the state’s colleges were facing nearly $169 million in proposed state budget cuts.
"Right now, the university community and I are preoccupied with the budget," McCormick said at the time, promising to restart the competition in the fall.

The Bank of America donation will be the first large gift for the redesign project.

Once a winning design is chosen, the campus overhaul is expected to be broken up into three phases, each with a $100 million price tag. Rutgers expects to pay for the new construction, landscaping and other changes through a combination of state borrowing, state transportation funds and private donations.