#b#New Arts Complex Underway in New Brunswick#/b#

The New Brunswick Development Corporation (Devco) is set to break ground on a 22-story building with two theaters, three rehearsal stages, and 240 apartments. According to a report in NJBIZ, the George Street Playhouse and the Crossroads Theater will be razed to make way for the $190 million project, which is scheduled to be finished in 2019.

The new building will also house both companies that performed in the demolished theaters, as well as the American Repertory Ballet and the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers. The project is being financed by Devco, Rutgers, and the New Brunswick Cultural Center.

New Brunswick’s planning board approved the plan April 10.

#b#Princeton Reveals Campus Plan#/b#

Princeton University has named several locations as potential sites for planned undergraduate housing and expansions of the engineering and environmental studies buildings.

The university proposed building undergraduate housing on the south of Poe Field and east of Elm Drive. Potential sites for the engineering and environmental studies expansions were on the north side of Ivy Lane and Western Way west of FitzRandolph Road.

“The university’s strategic planning process identified expansion of the undergraduate student body, engineering, and environmental studies as major priorities for Princeton,” said Princeton president Christopher L. Eisgruber. “We believe our planners have identified promising locations for the facilities necessary to implement these priorities while also preserving sites and options that are essential to sustain the quality of the University’s many ongoing activities and future projects.”

The new residential building would accommodate an expected increase of 125 students per class on what is now open space. The engineering and environmental studies expansion is mostly occupied by parking lots and also some faculty and staff housing, which would be relocated.

The proposed residential college location would require the relocation of athletic facilities that currently support softball and outdoor tennis. It is anticipated that new facilities would be designed for these sports on the lands south of Lake Carnegie, which the university plans to develop. The university is considering building a footbridge to connect the north and south sides of the lake.

For more information about Princeton’s proposed campus plan, visit www.campusplan.princeton.edu.

Princeton University, 1 Nassau Hall, Princeton 08544. 609-258-3000. Christopher Eisgruber, president. www.princeton.edu.

#b#Einstein’s Alley, or ‘Stink Highway?’#/b#

The Route 1 corridor is marketed as “Einstein’s Alley” because of the intellectual firepower concentrated there, but the New Yorker has coined the term “Stink Highway” to describe the stretch of I-95 between Philadelphia and Newark.

The term wasn’t meant as an insult. In the April 24 issue of the magazine, financial page writer Adam Davidson described a cluster of companies all dedicated to odor research and development, mentioning by name International Flavors & Fragrances, a firm based on Docks Corner Road in Dayton that develops products designed to reduce the stink of diapers, garbage cans, and other fragrant items.

Unmentioned in the article but definitely part of the “Stink Highway” are Firmenich Inc., a Plainsboro Road company that works on flavors and fragrances, and numerous other perfume companies. Davidson observed that the pattern of smell-related industries fits the pattern of a “cluster” of businesses that find it advantageous to stay close to one another. Easy interaction between companies causes innovation to spread rapidly.

Davidson wrote that clusters like the “Stink Highway” are threatened by isolationist economic policies from the government, which can stifle the innovation that is their raison d’etre.

“President Trump’s economic instincts — seeking to retain individual companies, not entire economic ecosystems; denouncing the arrival of people and products from elsewhere; cutting support for basic research and education — will only chase clusters away. A few hours on the stink highway would teach him that our highest economic hope is to be the place where the best from all over can come together,” he wrote.

Firmenich Inc., 250 Plainsboro Road, Plainsboro. 609-452-1000. www.firmenich.com.

International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), 150 Docks Corner Road, Dayton 08810. 732-329-4600, www.iff.com.

#b#Cold War: Halo Farm Sues Halo Top#/b#

It’s Halo versus Halo as Trenton-based Halo Farm has launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against Eden Creamery, a California-based company that has begun selling its Halo Top brand of sugar-free ice cream in New Jersey.

The suit, filed April 13, accuses the other Halo’s name of being “confusingly similar” to Halo Farm products. As an added dig, Halo Farm says some of its sugar-free competitor’s ingredients — organic stevia, prebiotic fiber, and alcohol erythritol — could induce flatulence, and that gassy customers could blame the wrong Halo for their intestinal troubles.

Halo Farm was founded in 1975 by Jeremiah K. Reilly, who died in January at age 88, leaving the business to his daughter, Kathleen Arnold. Reilly was a tap dancer whose Broadway career was cut short when he was drafted to serve in Korea. He entered the ice cream business after stints as a nuclear engineer, management consultant, and president of a pie company.

The original Halo Farm location on Spruce Street is still open, and over the years, Reilly expanded by opening the Halo Pub ice cream shops in Hamilton and Princeton.

Halo Farm, 970 Spruce Street, Trenton. 609-695-3311, www.­halofarm.com.

#b#Deaths#/b#

Joseph Kino De Lotto, 75, on April 20. He was the owner/operator of Gregory Liquor Store in Trenton for many years.

Milton L. Funari, 90, on April 18. After retiring from the state Department of Transportation he worked at Hopewell Valley Golf & Country Club.

Brian Snell Sr., 54, on April 18. He was a chef who was most recently employed at Capital Health. He was previously executive chef at Trenton Thunder Stadium and the Sun National Bank Center.

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