WOOLWICH TWP. — The new $300 million Rowan Boulevard revitalization project is entering a new phase of construction in 2010.

The first of five, four-story mixed-use buildings feature office, retial and residential space will begin, as well as a new hotel. Groundbreaking is planned for July or early August.

Plans for a major hotel and conference center with more than 100 rooms and a restaurant/banquet facility also continue, with the design phase now beginning and groundbreaking anticipated by mid-summer.

Rowan Boulevard is expected to attract as many as 60 new retail stores, including a dozen restaurants, boosting the local economy by more than $48 million annually when completed in 2012.

Construction of the boulevard is well under way, with its roadway curbing and basecoat now in place. Also last August, construction of a new Rt. 322 Roundabout was completed, providing a safer roadway link between the University main campus and Rowan Boulevard, and in September, spurred by Rowan Boulevard’s development, construction began on the first new business in Glassboro’s Arts & Entertainment District, the Let’s Dance Studio.