Beyer Blinder Belle gets accepted by Princeton

Real Estate Weekly, Oct 12, 2005

Princeton University has announced the selection of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP to lead the development of a long-term plan for its campus.

Heading a team of seven other specialized firms, BBB will take a fresh look at the 400-acre campus and outline how it might grow in the future. The project is particularly challenging since Princeton is in the midst of an ambitious building program. Princeton's campus is characterized by a seamless marriage of architecture and landscape, a quality that can be extended by balancing new development with complementary open spaces.

"Under the leadership of president Shirley M. Tilghman, we have engaged in an intensive series of internal discussions over the past two years with senior administrators, faculty, architects and other key stakeholders through which we have developed a set of overarching principles for campus planning and development," said Mark Burstein, executive vice president at Princeton.

"Now we will work with BBB to develop a plan for applying these principles to specific decisions we will need to make not only about where to locate new facilities, but also about parking, transportation, pedestrian access and circulation, infrastructure support, signage, landscaping and other issues."

Beyer Blinder Belle has prepared long-term campus plans for several other institutions, including the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Columbia University and the eight-campus Indiana University system.

The firm has assembled a team of specialists with whom it will work on various aspects of the plan. The other participants in the project include:

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Architecture Research Office, Lynden B. Miller Public Garden Design, Gorove/Slade Associates, Chance Management Advisors, Two Twelve Associates and Judith Nitsch Engineering.

The process of developing the campus plan is expected to take two years. According to Burstein, it will offer members of the University and local communities many opportunities for engagement.

The project is taking place during a 10-year building boom on Princeton's campus. Some 1.6 million s/f of space will have been added to the physical plant through new facilities by 2006, yielding a total physical plant of more than 9.5 million s/f. University officials estimate that Princeton will require an additional 1 million s/f between 2007 and 2017, the period to be covered by the plan. During the earlier internal discussions on campus planning, Princeton officials decided that, for the foreseeable future, the further expansion would take place on the main campus, rather than on land the University owns across Lake Carnegie in West Windsor.