Start of School Year at Rutgers Brings New Student Housing in Piscataway and Camden

The Livingston Apartments for graduate and undergraduate students is part of Rutgers’ strategic vision to expand and reinvigorate the Livingston Campus. The three mid-rise buildings comprise 660,000 gross square feet. Most units will have four bedrooms (each with a single bed), two full baths and a common kitchen and living room. The $215 million project at the intersection of Joyce Kilmer and Rockafeller roads is a short walk from the Livingston Student Center, Rutgers Athletic Center and the site of future academic buildings.

Retail space on the street level of the complex will offer services for students, staff and visitors that will feature an array of options for sit-down and carry-out dining. The businesses will also provide job opportunities for students and other members of the community.

Retail dining options eventually will include a typical New Jersey style diner named "Henry’s" (for Col. Henry Rutgers), complete with counter seats, booths and a bakery/takeout area; a full-service Starbucks store; and a grocer, where ready-to-eat and take-out meals, along with sundries, will be available for purchase.

At Rutgers-Camden, the new $55 million student housing facility at the corner of Cooper and 4th streets is the first new student housing on campus since 1989. It was built by the Camden County Improvement Authority and is owned by Rutgers. The building features student-gathering spaces, a fitness center, mail room, business center with study space and a roof deck that will be accessible from the residential tower.

Retailers – Subway, the Mexican restaurant Three Chiles Grill, and a 7-Eleven convenience store – occupy 7,000 square feet of street-level space. Each business anticipates operating day and evening hours and will serve Rutgers students and members of the Camden community. The new facility is expected to spur retail growth in the city’s University District and

In New Brunswick, the new three-story, 48,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble at Rutgers superstore will provide students, university personnel and city residents a world-class, full-service bookstore and cultural hub at the historic College Avenue Campus at 100 Somerset Street (between College and Easton avenues), adjacent to the New Jersey Transit train station.

Barnes & Noble College has more than 20 superstores nationwide. The new facility at Rutgers is one of the 10 largest in the country. It will carry more than 60,000 new and used textbooks and e-books, and more than 55,000 general interest and trade books. The store also features a large Scarlet Knights shop selling Rutgers merchandise; a technology section with Nook readers, tablets, laptops and accessories; a large children’s section with books and educational games; a “campus living room” for readings, book-signings, musical performances and local cultural events; and the Barnes & Noble Café serving Starbucks beverages and food items.

To help meet the rapidly growing demand for four-year college degrees in southern New Jersey, the university has opened the Rutgers Lifelong Learning Center at Atlantic Cape Community College in Mays Landing. The two-story, 22,000-square-foot academic and administrative services building will allow Rutgers to expand its degree-completion programs for students from Atlantic, Cape May and surrounding counties in such popular disciplines as psychology, business, nursing and criminal justice, and also offer continuing education programs at that site. The $7.5 million facility has nine state-of-the-art “smart classrooms” and two distance-learning classrooms, as well as office, meeting and student lounge spaces. This fall, social work will be added to the degree-completion programs offered at Atlantic Cape.

The facility eventually will be able to accommodate 2,000 students and will feature 11 classrooms, a 20-seat computer lab and a student lounge.