One-bed apartment plan at new Avalon Bay apartments in Princeton. (Via avaloncommunities.com, click to expand)

Avalon Bay has released floor plans and prices for their new apartments on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. The apartments are currently under construction, but are listed as available for move-in from August 19, 2016. The apartment community will eventually have 256 units, making it one of the biggest in Princeton. It is easily walkable to downtown and Princeton University campus. As expected, the apartments are pretty expensive…

The apartments will rent as the following rates:

• Studios from $2,213 per month
• One-beds from $2,655 per month
• Two-beds from $3,235 per month.

Parking is extra ($125/month) and there are other fees for pets etc. The full details are available at Avalon Bay’s website here. The prices are actually comparable to other new apartment communities in central Princeton. One-bedroom apartments at the recently-completed Copperwood development cost $2,230 – $3,300 per month, and they are much further away from downtown. Apartments at the Waxwood, which opened in 2005 on nearby Quarry Street, rent for about $2,450 for a one-bed.

Avalon Bay know that there is a lack of apartments in Princeton, so they will probably get away with charging high prices. Their senior vice-president openly said that they operate in markets like Princeton where it’s hard to build, so that they don’t have much competition. The town could drive down the cost of apartment rentals by allowing more people to build and rent apartments, but unfortunately that seems very unlikely. It took years and several court cases just to build these apartments. Much cheaper apartments are available in West Windsor, where Avalon Bay offers one-bedroom units starting at $1,525 per month. Unlike Avalon Princeton however, which is close to many jobs and stores, the apartments in West Windsor require a car journey for every trip.

Avalon Princeton will also include 56 ‘affordable’ apartments, which will be offered to tenants whose income is below defined thresholds. Those tenants will pay an affordable amount based on their income, which will be much lower than the market rate. At the present time, these units are not available.