Beyond the Lake, Meadows Neighborhood Is Under Construction
The West Windsor development adds housing for grad students and postdocs, plus facilities for varsity sports
Published June 30, 2024
In December 2021, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and a dozen Princeton administrators and local officials placed their shovels in the dirt for a ceremonial groundbreaking at the Meadows Neighborhood (then known as the Lake Campus), extending the University across Lake Carnegie and into the township of West Windsor.
Three years later, the development near Washington Road is taking shape, with housing for graduate students and postdocs now partly occupied, an underground geo-exchange system in place to heat and cool buildings, and several athletics facilities expected to be available in the fall semester.
“The Meadows Neighborhood will provide a place that is experienced as a natural, yet distinctive extension of the existing campus,” Dozie Ibeh, associate vice president for capital projects in the Department of Facilities, told PAW via email. The housing complex includes a community garden, barbeque areas, and outdoor recreation spaces for volleyball and table tennis, along with community rooms and a retail café slated to open this summer.
The 379 housing units opened in April and are expected to be filled by the start of the fall semester. The complex “significantly increases” the number of one-bedroom and studio apartments for grad students and postdocs, which are the most requested types, according to Dorian Johnson, executive director of housing and real estate services. Multi-occupant units include private bathrooms, Johnson added, for residents who want more cost-effective options. Parking is available in a nearby garage; shuttle bus routes, sidewalks, and bike lanes connect the Meadows Neighborhood to the main campus.
Graduate housing is in high demand, Johnson said, and the addition of the Meadows complex has “greatly increased the number of students the University can house on an annual basis.” Princeton guarantees University housing for new graduate students who request it before the housing application deadline.
The West Windsor land is also expected to be a major locus for athletics, with competition venues for at least eight varsity teams (softball, men’s and women’s squash and tennis, men’s and women’s cross country, and women’s rugby) as well as club and recreational sports.
The most significant addition, in terms of indoor space, is the 180,000-square-foot Racquet and Recreation Center, which includes indoor and outdoor tennis courts, indoor squash courts, locker rooms, coaches’ offices, and sports medicine facilities. The center, slated to open this fall, provides satellite fitness and recreation space for the campus community, including residents of the nearby apartments. Haaga House, with locker rooms and other amenities for the rugby programs, is expected to be open in the fall as well, Ibeh said.
The softball team, which had played at a temporary field near Princeton Stadium after being displaced by the construction of New College West, will move in the fall to its new stadium near the Meadows housing, funded by a gift from softball alumna Cynthia Paul ’94 and her husband, Scott Levy.
Princeton baseball likely will be the next team to move, according to a proposal for the new Quantum Institute, which would be built partly on what is now Clarke Field. Varsity baseball will relocate to the Meadows Neighborhood, the proposal said, though the site location and timetable for the move have not been announced.
Other campus projects nearing completion include the year-long renovation of Prospect House, which is scheduled to reopen in the fall, and the new Art Museum. Construction of the museum is expected to be finished by the end of the calendar year, and the public opening will come sometime in 2025.
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2 Responses
Clare Gallagher ’14
3 Weeks AgoWhile on campus for my 10th reunion, I was astonished to see that the pristine swath of land that used to be our historic cross country course, which is now dubbed “the Meadows Neighborhood,” had been paved and turned into uninspiring big-box buildings and parking lots. I also find it worrisome that the longest standing cross-country coach was not consulted about the development. I asked Peter Farrell (women’s cross country and track coach from 1978 to 2016) if he was contacted. He wrote in a text, “Nope. They don’t seem to want advice from a relic.”
Sure, there is a new condensed, oval cross country course that’s manicured and will be spectator friendly. And the current cross country coaches were involved with this new course. Farrell admitted, “I’m actually happy that they salvaged something.”
Still, PAW’s July article doesn’t compute. To say that the West Windsor land is “expected to be a major focus for athletics” without commenting on the fact that our historic cross country course was paved is paving over history.
To add insult to this development, this whole project follows supposed campus planning guiding principles in the name of “sustainability.” Since when did new building construction on undeveloped land earn the badge of sustainable? Aren’t we missing the point here? If we want to preserve biodiversity, shouldn’t we protect what’s in our own backyard?
While on a run to see what had happened to our beloved course, I saw a tiny fawn stuck between two long fences. One fence guarded the new Meadows Neighborhood and another was blocking access to the towpath. Needless to say, I wasn’t filled with black and orange pride.
Granted this was one animal on one day, but I believe her predicament is a microcosm of a larger problem with campus development. I can live without a historic cross country course, but can we thrive on a planet with less and less undeveloped land?
Rocky Semmes ’79
2 Months AgoThe Meadows Neighborhood encouragingly allows more graduate students to live in University apartments (“Beyond the Lake,” July/ August issue). But discouragingly, the desultory design of the domicile development is little more than repetitive alternating setback planes of nondescript flush-glazing. It is housing, yes, but it is disappointingly disaffecting as architecture.
Michael Graves, when a professor and the head of studio in the Department of Architecture, dutifully drilled the definitive dictum of the classic column orders, being base, then shaft, and then capital (bottom/middle/ top). In the studio, Professor Graves constantly evangelized and expounded the importance and the grounding principle of the tripartite scheme beyond just the column orders but also for buildings themselves. The scheme fits a building into place, defining its placement in space and anchoring the viewer in relation. The scheme provides a crucial psychic importance.
The emissionless energy generated from Michael Graves spinning in his grave, from this (the Meadows Neighborhood), and other recent campus developments, just might allow the University to accelerate its forecast for reaching net zero.