“What would you most like to see included in the reimagined Westminster Choir College campus?”
That’s the only question on a survey to gather input on what respondents envision for the 23-acre property on Walnut Lane, near Princeton High School and the Princeton Middle School.
The survey is available on the town’s website at www.princetonnj.gov.
The Municipality of Princeton acquired the Westminster Choir College’s former campus from Rider University in April. Consultant Topology LLC was hired to study how it could best be used to meet the community’s long-term needs.
The one-question survey is part of Topology’s three-phase project.
The first phase, which is under way, seeks to develop a vision for the property. Comments from the public are invited. Site objectives will be established and site constraints will be explored in this phase, which is expected to continue through August.
Three design alternatives for the campus will be developed during the second phase of the project, which begins in September and ends in February 2026. Two public workshops are planned to outline the proposed designs.
In the third and final phase of the project, the initial and final preferred design alternative will be presented in public sessions. This phase is expected to begin in February 2026 and end in June.
The campus had been at the center of on-going litigation for several years. Rider University acquired the choir college and its campus through a merger in 1992.
Rider decided to sell the college for financial reasons in 2016 and launched a worldwide search for a buyer who would keep it in Princeton.
Rider found a buyer in a commercial, Chinese-owned government-owned entity known as Beijing Kaiwen Educational Technology Ltd., but the deal fell through in 2019. Rider then announced plans to consolidate and move the Westminster Choir College to its Lawrence Township campus. The move was completed in 2020.
The announcement triggered two lawsuits filed by Westminster Choir College students and the Westminster Foundation in 2018 and 2019 to block the move. The foundation, whose members include faculty, former board members, donors and alumni, is not affiliated with the choir college.
Also, a 1935 trust that purchased the land for the choir college required it to remain on the Princeton property. The trust stated that if the choir college abandoned the campus, the land would be given to the Princeton Theological Seminary, according to an advisory report prepared by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. The seminary trains Presbyterian ministers.
Acquisition of the campus by the town was set in motion in September 2024, when the Princeton Council approved two ordinances. One ordinance authorized the property’s acquisition by negotiation, condemnation or eminent domain. The second ordinance was a $50 million bond ordinance to pay for its acquisition and related costs.
The town filed an action for eminent domain in Mercer County Superior Court in January 2025. Eminent domain allows the government to take private property for public use and to compensate the owner.
Rider University and the Princeton Theological Seminary, which both claimed ownership of the campus, agreed to sell it to the municipality for $42 million in March. A declaration of taking was filed April 1 with the Mercer County Clerk.
Princeton officials had said that acquiring the 23-acre property would enable the town to more effectively plan for its long-term future, such as providing much-needed education and recreational facilities for the community and the school district. The consultant’s study will help to determine its uses.
