The Nassau Inn is preparing for its first major expansion in more than 20 years as it celebrates its 70th anniversary.
Initial plans detail the construction of a six-story addition along Hulfish Street, with new retail space, an expanded ballroom and four floors containing 40 new guest rooms that would adjoin the hotel’s existing wings. The project is expected to be completed in three years, according to The Princeton Packet.
The current plan is a revision of a 1998 plan. Though approved by the Princeton Regional Planning Board, the original plan never came to fruition.
“[The plan] will give them the capacity to be the top of the line as far as the Route 1 corridor hotels are concerned in terms of attracting small conferences,” Marvin Reed, a Planning Board member, said.
Hotel officials appeared before the Board on Jan. 24 to present and receive feedback for their expansion concept plans but did not submit a formal application. Hotel officials have also met with the Borough’s Historic Preservation Review Committee and have modified their design plan to reflect the committee’s comments.
Neither Nassau Inn general manager Lori Rabon nor Nassau Inn attorney Thomas Letizia responded to requests for comment.
The inn is expected to make a formal submission to the Planning Board sometime this month. Reed said hotel officials would like to get as much work done as possible between the University’s 2008 and 2009 Commencements.
“Commencement is always when they are completely full and have the most activity and the longest waiting list,” Reed said. “They don’t want to lose that and inconvenience people who depend upon the tradition of coming to their children’s graduation by staying at the old Nassau [Inn] and drinking a beer in the old taproom.”
The project would also include renovating all 84 guest rooms in the hotel’s older Colonial Wing. The remodeling would reduce the number of rooms in the wing by 28, leaving a total of 56 rooms. When the project is completed, the hotel will see a net increase of only 12 rooms.
“In that sense, it’s not so much an expansion of their rooms as a complete renovation of the older part of the hotel,” Reed said. “That’s very essential. Those 1938 rooms just aren’t state-of-the-art.”
Other aspects of the renovation include improving outdated mechanical HVAC, electric and plumbing systems throughout the hotel.
Reed added he is pleased with plans for a new exterior entrance, waiting area and outdoor seating for the Yankee Doodle Tap Room restaurant.
“This plan will restore the taproom to one of the more prominent eating and drinking places in town,” he said. “And that is long overdue.”

The plan also proposes demolishing and reconstructing the current Lindt Chocolate retail space, as well as two new floors of retail space, meeting rooms and storage. The expansion has been a long time in the works for the hotel, which has seen increased competition from newer hotels in the Princeton area.
“There is pressure from the Route 1 area, and they’ve really got to update both meeting facilities and older rooms,” Reed said. “They’re just too small in terms of what people expect from a first-class hotel.”
Town officials said the main obstacle to the plan is likely to be the influx of cars from added capability.
“I think the only concern of the concept plan is parking,” William Wakefield, Planning Board co-vice chair, said. “[The expansion] is going to put a greater burden on the parking situation. It is an ongoing problem, and they’re going to have to deal with it.”
In the past, Nassau Inn representatives have successfully argued that most new patrons would arrive by taxi or limousine rather than in their own vehicles, Wakefield said.
“They are adding capacity to the inn, and it’s not logical to say ‘all of the additional capacity will come from taxi or limo,’ ” Wakefield said. “I just don’t think that’s logical.”
Reed also said some community residents expressed concern that inadequate parking may lead to cars spilling over onto neighborhood streets. “We’ll be watching when they come back to make sure it’s adequate to keep the people who are coming there parked in the Palmer Square garage,” he said.
Both Reed and Wakefield said improved valet parking could help solve the problem. A new Borough ordinance passed after the first expansion proposal in 1998 permits Palmer Square to do stacked parking in its garages provided it is done by a valet service.