Onward and upward

Contruction site of the future Barnes & Noble at Rowan University

It wasn't long ago that Rowan Boulevard was more dreamscape than landscape.

The privately funded $300 million venture linking Rowan's main Glassboro campus with downtown sounded wonderful but distant, almost too good.

But the dream is quickly coming true.

The project, for which ground was broken in March, 2009, has already produced a four-story student apartment complex with 560 beds and completion of the second housing phase - an additional 324 beds - is expected in August.

The 100-foot wide, one-third mile corridor linking Rowan with downtown will soon be anchored by an all-new Barnes & Noble Collegiate Superstore - just the second in New Jersey - with a grand opening planned for November.

Barnes & Noble at Rowan University, a 36,000 square-foot outlet, will offer more than 75,000 titles, a Rowan University textbook section, a Varsity Spirit Shop, and feature an indoor/outdoor Starbucks café.

In September, groundbreaking is planned for three additional major aspects of the project - a Marriott Courtyard hotel and conference center; a large retail building with 22,000 square feet of street level commercial space and upper level apartments for Rowan honors students; and a vast multi-level parking/retail facility.

Recognized with a 2009 Smart Growth award from NJ Future, a statewide policy and research group that advocates responsible planning, Rowan Boulevard was designed to revitalize Glassboro's aging downtown shopping district as a walkable community. The project to date has created more than 400 construction jobs and more than 700 permanent positions are anticipated upon completion.

"It's a perfect example of smart growth," said Glassboro Mayor Leo McCabe. "We're rebuilding our infrastructure and we're not sprawling out."

A virtual fly-through of the Rowan Boulevard redevelopment project

The mayor noted a $1.2 million grant recently obtained by the borough to restore a historic train station adjacent to campus. That station, which accommodated train riders in the 1920s when the Glassboro Normal School - the precursor to Rowan University - was founded, will again greet riders when the Glassboro-Camden line is completed. The train line, another example of smart growth, will directly link Rowan's main Glassboro campus with Camden, where the all-new Cooper Medical School at Rowan University is being developed.

"We can't say it enough. This is the ultimate smart growth project," Borough Administrator Joe Brigandi said.

But Rowan Boulevard is even bigger than a smart growth public/private partnership. It's a path to renewing and rebuilding a sense of place.

"When the strip malls were built a sense of place is what we lost," said Dr. Thomas Gallia, chief of staff to Rowan President Donald Farish.

Gallia, a Glassboro resident who has spent nearly 50 years at Rowan, first as a student and graduate student, then as a faculty member and administrator, noted that all of the property along Rowan Boulevard will be privately held but the student housing will be managed, maintained and kept secure by the University.

"From our students' point of view it will be absolutely spectacular," Gallia said. "They'll be able to buy a book, have a sandwich, get an ice cream, all within walking distance of their apartment."

Greg Filipek, a co-principal with boulevard master developer SORA Holdings and a 1981 graduate of the university, said the design of Rowan Boulevard was inspired by some of the best smart growth/student housing concepts in America but ultimately will stand as its own model.

In addition to all the housing, retail, parking and hotel space in the boulevard proper, the project will feature a 1.5 acre open park and an arts and entertainment district, all of which is designed to spur further development in the community.

Filipek said even before it's fully built, it's a model that college towns around the nation are looking to follow.

"When I went to Glassboro State it was really a commuter school," he said. "Part of the problem in the past was there was not enough housing stock and not really enough to do. Now there will be much more to do and much more housing stock but that's only a part of it. We're getting contacted every day by universities around the country saying can you do for us what we're doing in Glassboro."

Watch the video presentation and virtual reality tour (Updated) >>>