History & Growth

The Beginnings

In the early years of the Camden Campus, the Campus Center had been in the basement of the Presbyterian church at Fifth and Penn Streets. The bond issue of 1959 allowed the college to build a $1.1 million dollar campus center for the students in the Fall of 1964. The Campus Center first opened as the College Center back in 1964.  It was the first freestanding student center at any Rutgers University location and housed staff offices and conference meeting space.  The Campus Center has undergone multiple expansions and renovations in 1975, 1988, 1994, 2004, 2007, and even more recently as well, giving us the wonderful building that we have today.

The Expansions

The first expansion occurred in 1975 and included the construction of an ice cream parlor, tavern, multi-purpose room, a club and organization room, office space for the student paper, yearbook, and several conference rooms. Renovation of the original dining space occurred in 1988 in order to address the needs of a larger campus residence population. Expansion occurred again in 1994. This expansion added four floors to the existing Campus Center including four conference rooms on the lower level, the campus bookstore on the main level and Student Health/Campus Center Staff Offices on the second level. The third floor provided student organizations with an expanded complex to organize and work on student activities. A student information center/ID center was added to the main lobby in 1998, the south conference rooms were renovated in 1998, and Starbucks Coffee was incorporated into the lobby in 2002.  The current Campus Center is 94,671 gross square feet.

The campus bookstore relocated to a new facility on Cooper Street in 2004 and its former home in the Campus Center, called The Corner, was remodeled as a convenience store, student lounge, billiards room, student art gallery and reading room with wireless access. The dining facility was renovated during summer 2007 and again in summer 2019.  Additional student leader lounges and staff offices were renovated between January 2007 and October 2007. The multi-purpose room, main lounge and lower level of the original facility were renovated in 2018.