The design for the Arts and Transit Neighborhood is intended to establish new and enhanced academic, cultural and retail spaces for both the University and local communities as well as to improve the infrastructure in the area and to provide access to additional transportation services.

University planning for the Arts and Transit Neighborhood design will be guided by the following principles:

• Create a neighborhood of additional academic, performance and retail spaces to serve creative and performing arts programs, including new galleries for the Princeton University Art Museum.
• Create an attractive space for students and local residents patronizing the new facilities (including new retail space), as well as patrons of McCarter and Berlind theatres and riders of the Dinky.
• Provide increased opportunities for both the community and campus to participate in, and to benefit from, new cultural and retail resources.
• Reconfigure the Alexander Street and University Place intersection and improve infrastructure in the area: traffic circulation, parking and landscaping.
• Preserve the Dinky service and provide additional services for riders.
• Preserve sufficient flexibility to accommodate potential bus rapid transit service and community jitney service.
• Improve the Alexander Street and University Place corridor as a "gateway" to the community and the campus.

Looking north from the new Transit Plaza, the model above shows the proposed three-sided arts complex in the center, the reconfigured University Place/Alexander Road intersection and the new access road to the West Garage (formerly Lot 7), with existing Forbes College on the left, McCarter and Berlind theaters behind and New South on the right.