A boarding school that's backed by a Chinese real estate mogul is looking to attract international students, reported The Times of Trenton.
Jiang Bairong is chairman of Bairong Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd. in Beijing, a nonprofit founded in 2001 that not only invests in commercial real estate, but services in chemical products, highway and finance. He funds The Bairong Education Foundation, which bought the campus located on 19 Lambert Drive.
The school, called The Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science, is expected to enroll up to 300 students between grades 7 and 12, but will start with 30 students, said Denise Benou Stires, the chief operator officer of the new school, in an interview with The Times.
The Lambert property was once home to the American Boychoir School, until they relocated to Plainsboro, then it was bought by the foundation for $5.9 million. They will also be investing an extra $20 million to push the new school in the short term. According to Stires, they always wanted to have to school in Princeton and the property was "not easy to come by."
But according to The Times, not everyone is pleased with the new school. Neighbors in the vicinity of the campus are striking down the idea of expanding and rezoning the current property,
"Everybody in our neighborhood purchased homes with the expectation that the existing density would be preserved," said Janet Simon in an e-mail interview with The Times. "So the school is proposing a dramatic and damaging change to an existing neighborhood."
Simon is especially against the school's mission suggesting it's only to serve their own country than the community.
Bairong is well known in China as man with many businesses. He also took on oil and tobacco businesses and securities industry, before he left to start in Beijing Real Estate.