Plainsboro has hired an advisor to analyze the economic impact of a proposal to move University Medical Center at Princeton (UMC) to the township. Basil Bauman Prost & Associates, of Annapolis, Maryland, was chosen by a committee headed by Ernie Freeman, the township’s director of community development.
“We felt that they would be the best candidate for assessing the fiscal impacts of the project,” said Freeman. “They have experience with hospitals, and experience in Jersey. We felt like Ralph Basil really understood what the township was after.”
Freeman said he made his recommendation based on the firm’s promise that Basil himself would be working with the township on the analysis.
UMC announced on November 28, 2005, its intent to purchase the FMC property on Route 1 north in Plainsboro for a new 800,”000 square-foot hospital. The 155-acre tract is bounded by the Millstone River, Route 1, Scudders Mill Road, and the connector road between Scudders Mill and Plainsboro roads.
Basil won’t start work on the project until UMC submits a site plan. The hospital, which has outgrown its current structure on Witherspoon Street in Princeton, announced last November that it selected a Plainsboro site for its new location.
Business Administrator Robert Sheehan said the township seeks to know every economic impact the hospital will have on the township. “We’re going to have this large complex that won’t be paying taxes, but it will be accompanied by 120,”000 square feet of medical offices that will be taxable,” says Sheehan. “And they’ll look at the impact of having all those employees. Will they be shopping in our stores?”
Sheehan says the township is using the analyst to help it understand “all the good and bad that comes with it. Will there be a unique demand put on our township services, like police and social services?”
