Project in focus: Graduate Princeton, New Jersey

We take a closer look at newly approved plans to convert an underused building in the Ivy League university town of Princeton into a 180-room Graduate Hotels property.

Ambitious proposals to create Graduate Princeton, a major new hotel next to Princeton University’s campus, have moved a step closer to becoming reality.

Graduate Hotels gets the green light

Princeton Zoning Board voted unanimously to approve Graduate Hotels’ plans to create a 180-room hotel at 20 Nassau Street, on the corner with Chambers Street, in February 2021, according to Planet Princeton. The consented scheme features a speakeasy bar in the basement and 76 underground valet parking spaces.

“If you look at the overall project itself, it is a very good thing for the town to take a property that is old and underutilised and upgrade it,” said Princeton Zoning Board chairman Steve Cohen just before the vote. “It also provides a nice rateable for the town. It will be a real asset.”

A US$100 million investment in Princeton

Tim Ryan of Graduate Hotels told the board that the total cost of the project would be well over US$100 million. He added that the scheme would bring “something incredible and high quality that will age well” to Princeton.

The Chicago-based Graduate Hotels brand was launched by vertically integrated real-estate investment manager Adventurous Journeys Capital Partners in 2014. It aims to establish a well-curated, well-crafted collection of hotels in dynamic university towns across the US and overseas, and boasts prominent sites in the likes of Berkeley, Columbia, Cincinnati and Seattle.

Stonehill Taylor and Joshua Zinder Architecture + Design are collaborating on the architecture of Graduate Princeton, while Ventresca Design is involved in the lighting design. The project is expected to take 24 to 26 months to complete.

Many TOPHOTELNEWS articles draw on exclusive information from the TOPHOTELPROJECTS construction database. This subscription-based product includes details of thousands of hotel projects around the world, along with the key decision-makers behind them. Please note, our data may differ from records held by other organisations. Generally, the database focuses on four- and five-star schemes of significant scale; tracks projects in either the vision, pre-planning, planning, under-construction, pre-opening or newly opened phase; and covers newbuilds, extensions, refurbishments and conversions.

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