Plainsboro Township Committee on Wednesday, June 13, will consider authorizing a study of whether the site planned for the new University Medical Center at Princeton can be declared an area in need of redevelopment.##M:[more]##
UMCP intends to develop the 155-acre FMC property on Route 1 north with a complex that would include a new 800,”000 square-foot hospital.
According to township administrator Robert Sheehan, designating the property as an area in need of redevelopment “may hold certain advantages for us. For one, it gives the ability for towns to negotiate agreements with developers.”
“Since the hospital submitted its plan there has been a lot of work behind scenes,” explains Mayor Peter Cantu, “and there are a number of issues that we’re looking at — economic, affordable housing, and planning, that we feel might be better addressed under the auspices of a redevelopment plan.”
Cantu says the township committee will take the first step in the process on June 13 by considering a resolution that would direct the Planning Board to conduct a study of the site to see if it meets the state criteria for a redevelopment zone.
The process is the same as the one undertaken by West Windsor two years ago when it designated a 350-acre area in downtown Princeton Junction as a redevelopment zone. But while West Windsor continues to slowly grind through the process of devising a plan for its zone, Plainsboro’s will likely be very different.
For one, the Plainsboro redevelopment zone is much smaller than West Windsor’s, and limited in scope to the hospital plan. “This is something we’re doing cooperatively with FMC and the hospital,” Sheehan points out. He adds that some of stigma involved with redevelopment in New Jersey will not be part of this process. “There will be no eminent domain issues, or taking of property.”
“This should not be a contentious situation,” Cantu says. Unlike other redevelopment projects that include multiple properties, Plainsboro’s would be confined only to FMC. “We are only looking at this single site. Clearly a lot of the issues that have troubled other redevelopment projects do not exist here.”
Last December, UMCP submitted a concept plan proposing 2.3 million-square foot project that, in addition to the hospital, also includes a continuing care retirement center, medical offices, and research facilities.
The FMC tract is bounded by the Millstone River, Route 1, Scudders Mill Road, and the connector road between Scudders Mill and Plainsboro roads.
The plan calls for several of the existing FMC buildings, including the main structure, to be demolished Three existing FMC buildings would remain and be incorporated into the medical center. The main hospital building, designed by Hillier Architecture, is proposed to be glass and brick.
