The health care and education sectors are undergoing dramatic changes. So are their real estate needs.
Frank Wong has worked for Rutgers University for 30 years, but the last five have been especially busy for the head of the school’s planning and development office.
That’s no surprise, given the high-profile projects seen at Rutgers’ flagship campus in recent years — from the “wildly successful” new 550-bed residential honors college in New Brunswick to the iconic town square and retail space known as The Yard at College Avenue.
A major piece of Rutgers University’s sweeping redevelopment effort in New Brunswick has opened its doors — as evidenced by the 465 students who moved in this past weekend.
Built by New Brunswick Development Corp., or Devco, The Yard @ College Avenue includes 160 apartments for undergraduates and some 15,000 square feet of retail space. At the center of the 14-story, U-shaped apartment building is a 25,000-square-foot public green space and a 320-square-foot outdoor LED monitor.
The roughly $90 million project, which sits at the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street, is one component of historic makeover at Rutgers’ College Avenue campus. The effort represents more than $300 million in total investment and has been touted as a way to put New Brunswick on par with other major college towns across the country.
The opening of The Yard follows last year’s completion of a 550-bed honors college along George Street and a newly built facility for the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, which was relocated in order to make way for the Rutgers project. Next week, Devco and Rutgers are slated to open the university’s first academic building on the campus in decades.
