The University donated 10 acres of land to South Brunswick Township on Oct. 29 in a joint effort with the State of New Jersey to turn 214 acres of undeveloped land into a nature preserve.
The University intends to add a total of 134 acres to the tract, which will become part of the Mapleton Preserve at South Brunswick, an area between the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the village of Kingston. The University has also earmarked $100,000 to support the plan.
Robert Durkee '69, vice president and secretary of the University, said he hopes the donation will save historical land from development.
"[The acres] will remain more or less in their current, natural space," he said in an email.
The tract of land will be preserved and maintained by the State of New Jersey and South Brunswick Township.
It will most likely be used for outdoor educational purposes as well as historical and horticultural preservation centers.
"South Brunswick and the State of New Jersey will decide exactly how the lands will be used," Durkee said.
He added that the open spaces will help reduce traffic in Kingston.
The University purchased the land in 1986, when the owners of the Princeton Nurseries decided to sell lands adjacent to the University-owned Princeton Forrestal Center. The center, which with the new green space will comprise 650 total acres of open space, was created in the 1970s to influence the nature of development in the region, Durkee said.
"When the Nurseries were put up for sale, we did not want to see them developed in some of the other ways that development has occurred both north and south of here along Route 1," he said.
Durkee said that the University had planned to preserve the land near Kingston on its own, but decided to donate the land to South Brunswick after seeing the township's plan to turn it into a nature preserve.
He added that negotiations had been underway for nearly five years.
Approximately 60 acres of the park will come from New Jersey's Green Acres program, which is in talks with Princeton Nurseries to acquire the land, according to a University press release.
The University will continue to own a 150-acre tract of land along Route 1.
"Our goals [for these lands] are to develop them at some point in the future as office/research space in an attractive manner," Durkee said.
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