After three presentations from its professionals regarding InterCap Holdings’ concept plan for the Princeton Junction train station redevelopment area, the West Windsor Council came to a consensus on some preliminary traffic and circulation elements it wants to see in its own redevelopment plan being drafted by RMJM Hillier.##M:[more]##
More than 100 residents packed council chambers for the September 8 meeting, which lasted four-and-a-half hours, to hear the presentations. Many donned stickers provided by InterCap officials that stated “Support MainStreet 2008.”
Among its decisions, council decided that two intersections were needed in the redevelopment area at both Alexander and Washington roads, that there needed to be two crossings over the Dinky, and that two roads should traverse the site, but it punted on any decisions on land use for any of the properties on the site, citing the need to do “more homework,” and because it was running out of time. This drew criticism from InterCap CEO Steve Goldin after the meeting, who noted the consultants’ positive comments about the uses set forth in the plan. But council has said that issues of scope and scale — and thus, the number of housing units — must decide where the uses, such as residential and parking, belong.
Gary Davies and John Madden, the township’s traffic circulation and planning consultants each gave their own review of InterCap’s plans, in comparison with that of Hillier’s from last year, and then offered one joint presentation and recommendations about the decisions council needed to make in order for the redevelopment plan to be drafted.
Goldin, whose company owns 25 acres on Washington Road in the redevelopment area, has proposed 755,”000 square feet of office space, 292,”000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, 250 senior units, 144 senior affordable housing units, 450 market-rate townhomes, and 152 non-senior affordable housing units in his plan.
Meanwhile, state Department of Transportation officials are expected to present their evaluation of the effects of the traffic circulation on the Penns Neck Environmental Impact Study, created in 2001, in connection with how it fits regional connectivity goals during the interagency task force’s next meeting on Thursday, September 25, at 1:30 p.m. in council chambers.
Davies’ Presentation. In his presentation, Davies first gave a comprehensive review of the traffic data collected by Eng-Wong, Taub, & Associates, of Newark, hired by Goldin, to analyze traffic projections in the redevelopment area through the year 2030.
“The bottom line is the findings are similar to what we found back in March,” Davies said. In March, his “sketch-level” analysis depicted the number of cars generated during peak traffic hours in the redevelopment area, and in most cases, the traffic increased under a future no-build scenario in areas like Route 571 where it crosses over Amtrak, and the new Alexander/North Post roundabout.
Davies told the council that the site needs a second intersection on Alexander Road at Old Bear Brook to help improve traffic flow. He also found that even with the improvements, there will be congestion offsite to the east. In general, areas north of the Dinky will be good for pedestrians, and areas to the south of the Dinky will not be so good, he said.
In addition, in order to feed that intersection at Old Bear Brook, Vaughn Drive is going to need to be four lanes, he said. Regardless of whether the council ultimately decides to put four lanes or two lanes on the road, “the parking that’s presently there is going to have to go away to accomplish the traffic needs of Vaughn Drive,” he said, adding that those spaces will need to be accounted for elsewhere.
The InterCap plan also shows a road parallel to Vaughn Drive, which comes from the south and includes an underpass where it travels under Route 571. “Our feeling is that (the underpass is) an expensive luxury,” Davies said, adding that it is not needed.
Davies also suggested township officials think about extending Vaughn Drive or the second road on site, which he called “Road B” — which runs through InterCap’s proposed town center area — to become the Sarnoff connector, which would eventually go up through the Sarnoff property and over through Route 1. But “I believe the alignment on Vaughn Drive is the best place to go,” he said. “Vaughn Drive wants to carry more traffic. Also, the BRT (Bus-Rapid Transit system proposed by the NJ Transit) probably wants to be on Vaughn Drive.”
With regard to west side circulation, Davies said the train station core area is in need of more detail. “There is some provision here for dropoff; there is some provision for a bus platform,” he said. “But it needs specifically more detail.” He said, though, that the NJ Transit is working on its own designs for the core area.
An additional pedestrian tunnel is needed, Davies said. “The only place you can get across is the tunnel by the main station,” he said. “We’re suggesting there needs to be a new tunnel at the south end of the platform, and tie it maybe to a new pedestrian plaza in that southern area.”
Davies said that extending the road lines in the InterCap plan for Vaughn Drive and Road B, coupled with a new intersection at Old Bear Brook Road, results in an x-shaped arrangement for the two roads near the southern portion of the site. “It’s going to be a fairly busy area,” he said. “It’s not necessarily an intersection that’s going to have the pavers and landscape it shows on this plan.”
Further, Davies was concerned about the use of Road B in the Town Center area, in the location of InterCap’s proposed town green area. “It wants to have a fair bit of traffic on it,” he said. “It wants to be busy. Traffic is good for retail. But it doesn’t want to be so much traffic that it’s pedestrian unfriendly, so it’s going to take a lot of attention to make that work out.” Davies also suggested that the BRT come in on the Dinky and go back out on more of a main road like Vaughn Drive, and not a road like Station Drive.
With regard to Main Street, Davies said the InterCap plan was consistent with the adopted concepts for Route 571 already approved by county. The Acme site, he said, has a nice green area, but he said it would probably have to be a “heavily channelized intersection” to protect Sherbrook from through-traffic.
But, overall, Davies said, that “the garage layouts, sizes, and access in general make sense for the plan.”
Madden’s Presentation. Madden noted that the InterCap plan provides more detail of services and building and parking configurations. On InterCap’s own 25 acres off Washington Road, the developer has proposed primarily a mix of residential and retail, while the Hillier plan proposes mostly office buildings. However, both plans primarily have the commuter parking as well as the office buildings south of the Dinky line.
The structure parking on both plans is located on the NJ Transit property. Both also propose a similar Main Street area, with the difference being that Hillier shows a concentration of buildings between three and seven stories high on the InterCap property and buildings between three and four stories high on the NJ Transit property, Madden explained. On the other hand, InterCap proposes no office buildings on its own property, and it proposes no buildings throughout the entire plan that reach more than five stories high, he added.
He said while the housing element has been one of the biggest concerns for residents and officials throughout the entire redevelopment process, “the redevelopment process gives you the unusual ability to control the base character and the type of residential development,” Madden said. “The plan could have several phases,” he said, adding that perhaps the first phase could include a base level of housing units, and officials can move forward and decided on the future once they see the fiscal impacts and other factors of the first phase.
“All these things could be weighed by the community,” he said.
To the south of the Dinky, InterCap proposes to place the office buildings and parking as the dominant land use activity. And the key piece of property in that area is owned by the NJ Transit, Madden pointed out. “NJ Transit is in the business of providing commuter parking, and most of the parking that is being proposed by InterCap is being proposed on NJ Transit property, which makes sense,” Madden said. “Also, they are proposing corporate offices on NJ Transit property that also makes sense because corporate offices draw workers from the region,” and the location is close to the Dinky, NJ Transit trains, and BRT.
Overall, with the central gathering place, the design of Main Street, and the visual depictions, Madden said “it’s fair to say they (InterCap) have created a sense of place here, which I believe is one of the primary goals in West Windsor.”
“For the most part, the InterCap plan does conform with the guiding principles the township had annunciated,” he added.
Joint Presentation. Following their individual presentations, Madden and Davies jointly summarized what they envisioned for the redevelopment area, and the decisions that still needed to be made.
Davies told the council that West Windsor officials need to give thought to the various types of traffic that traverse the site in planning its roads, including the regional traffic that comes primarily onto Alexander Road from Route 1, mostly coming from Pennsylvania. The other is to figure out how to deal with traffic coming from the office area and Carnegie Center off Alexander traveling east onto Route 571. He examined different ways of bringing the traffic into the site, and told the council it also needs to decide what to do with Sarnoff.
Ultimately, he said, two intersections are needed on Washington and Alexander roads; there will be only two crossings at the Dinky; and focal points and system alignments to the south of the site need to be established.
Madden, for the most part, agreed with the land uses proposed for each of the properties in the InterCap plan. He said the NJ Transit property should be used primarily for commuter parking. The Main Street property should be used for small-scale buildings, primarily retail, and that the best place for creating a town center with specific needs is on the InterCap property, Madden said. He said he believes development of the InterCap property could be the early stage of the redevelopment process, and could prove to be a “catalyst” for the redevelopment area.
“Most importantly, it’s capable of creating that critical mass of residential neighborhood for retail purposes and animating the public spaces at all hours of the day and night,” he said. “It makes sense that this be the core of the town center of the redevelopment area.”
He also suggested the council stick with the plans already approved for office and a hotel on the Sarnoff site. The West Windsor properties should be used for parking as well as small-scale office. The InterCap site should be used for residential and retail, he said.
Council Decisions. After the presentations, council pressed forward with making decisions regarding the traffic, but stopped short of making decisions on the actual land uses for each of the properties, citing the time as a factor.
First council members all agreed with Davies’ assessment that the redevelopment area serves a regional need. The council also decided that it would like to see two roads, as opposed to one, heading through the site, with attention given to how they cross over each other.
More specifically, in the northerly area of the site, the second principle thoroughfare should go through the site, and not run along the edge, but professionals will have to design the road in a way that is sensitive to the people and the environment in the area, council decided.
In addition, those two principle roads should connect in some way at a single intersection near the southern portion of the site, council said.
Another consensus reached was that because of the amount of site traffic in the redevelopment area, there should be two access points, or intersections on both Alexander Road and Washington Road. Based on the presentations by Madden and Davies, one suggestion was to add the second intersection at the intersection of Old Bear Brook Road. While all council members consented to the idea of having two intersections on Alexander Road, Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman said she was not sure she was “comfortable with traffic going across Old Bear Brook Road, and how it affects that neighborhood.” Davies said he could add a footnote in that consensus that the Old Bear Brook intersection would be evaluated.
The council also decided it wanted to see its professionals more tightly integrate the Sarnoff with respect to land use as well as traffic flow, and integrate it with the property on the south side of Washington Road.
The council also wants to see two crossings over the Dinky, and “resist any efforts by NJ Transit” to reduce the number of crossings to one. The council also acknowledged NJ Transit would probably not allow for three crossings.
West Windsor Parking Authority Chairman Andy Lupo also weighed in on the discussion. He said that the Parking Authority is still working on scrubbing the waiting list — the scrubbing is about 90 percent complete — so the Desman report can be finalized, but said the 6,”000 total parking spaces estimated for commuter parking seemed to fall in line with the authority’s own preliminary projections. He did point out that any parking must be located close to the train station. “A 10-minute walk is a far walk if you’re doing it everyday,” he said. He also suggested than an extra pedestrian terminal could come in the form of an overpass. Lupo also said officials need to ensure the kiss and ride area is expanded and improved.
Residents who both supported Goldin’s proposed plans, and those who were skeptical of the plans — particularly those who live in the neighborhoods near the southern portion of the site, where traffic is projected to be its heaviest — voiced their opinions after more than three hours of listening to the presentations.
Lancashire Drive resident Meg Chicco said that from what she’s heard, officials cannot deny that it will be a regional development, and her concern was that all of the development will take place before any of the Route 1 improvements called for by the state ever come to fruition, leaving far worse traffic jams in West Windsor. She said she feels officials cannot discuss all of the circulation issues within the redevelopment area without discussing the impact on those on the outside, like Clarksville Road.
Princeton Place resident John Church said he was “really very much concerned about the traffic impact of all of this,” and that he thinks officials should try to expand the lanes on Route 571 on the bridge over the tracks. Davies, however, said the problem is not the bridge, but the Cranbury-Wallace-Route 571 intersection, and that the township has already decided not to add more lanes there.
Penn Lyle Road resident Bryan Maher said he still has not heard that NJ Transit is on board with the plans for the redevelopment area, and does not see why the township continues to spend money on having its professionals conduct studies and analyses without a definite commitment. “The fact of the matter is we got the cart before the horse,” he said. “I feel like a 10-year-old kid in FAO Schwartz who has been told he can have all of these toys, and now I’m wondering who is pulling out the American Express card to pay for all this.”
He said he does not believe tax increment financing will work because it involves borrowing future tax revenues. He said he thought the township should be using those revenues to pay for things like police and emergency services for township residents instead. Maher said he would very much like to have a sense of place, but “you just can’t ask us to spend this money.”
Others said they felt it was simply time to move forward. Resident Sandra Duffy said she felt the traffic concerns would be eased by the nature of the redevelopment and the new retail brought to the area. “If we can make it an attractive place to do something, there won’t be a mad dash of cars out of there,” once people arrive back to the station after work, she said. “It could serve to spread the traffic out.”
Duffy said she was also concerned that officials would overanalyze the plans “to death,” and that it would hinder the progress. “I think circulation issues have circulated around council long enough,” she said.
Michele Siekerka, of the Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce, presented a council with a resolution from the organization in support of the transit plans for the redevelopment area and urged the council to move forward.
Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman asked Eric Jaffe, of RMJM Hillier, when he could have a draft of the redevelopment plan to council. Jaffe said his firm needs to have a grasp of which land uses to place on each property before he can finalize the plan. “It’s one big puzzle we all have to work on,” he said.
Council President Charles Morgan said the council still had more homework to do, and that it will address the issue soon.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said that “if you start getting into too much of the details, you will never get anywhere.”
He said that “without a clear picture in terms of land use and traffic patterns, how are you going to do a financial analysis?” He also addressed statements by residents recently who recalled varying amounts of township money spent on the redevelopment process so far, saying that $336,”000 has been spent up to this point.
Morgan said he felt the presentation exceeded his expectations, and that he felt the council provided a good framework so far. He said he expects more information to come from the DOT during an interagency task force meeting on Thursday, September 25. “There will be more work coming, and we will announce more meetings,” he said.
Goldin’s Reaction. After the meeting, Goldin was critical of the council for not making a decision regarding land uses for specific properties.
He said the council’s own professionals have agreed with the concepts for land use laid out in InterCap’s plans, and Hillier’s professionals have said they needed to know where the council wants to place the land uses before they can finish the draft redevelopment plan. He also said InterCap’s surveys and focus groups all show that the public wants redevelopment, but “it’s been promised and delayed.”
“In the next few months, people will understand Charlie Morgan’s hidden political agenda and why he is ignoring the unanimous support for the InterCap plan by all of the township’s consultants and professionals,” Goldin said. “Charlie Morgan is putting his personal agenda ahead of my fellow residents’ stated desire for a better West Windsor.”
“It’s not that they’re waiting for information” on the land use elements, Goldin added. “That’s a council decision. It’s time to move forward.”
When asked his reaction to the decisions the council did make, Goldin said “that’s all fine, but if you don’t tell your own planner or architect what direction to take, effectively they have stopped the process. No one is asking him to make decisions on the scale and scope of the units. There’s no information they’re missing. Make a decision already. That’s what the public wants.”
Days before the meeting, Goldin had criticized the council, accusing it of contemplating shifting some housing units from InterCap’s site to NJ Transit’s (see letters page 5).
Morgan addressed those comments before the presentations, recalling the council’s work this year in passing the redevelopment overlay ordinance, passing its guiding principles, and passing a resolution in which the council provided specific ideas around the direction it wanted redevelopment to go. “People seem to think that Hillier presented a redevelopment plan last year, and that InterCap Holdings presented its redevelopment plan this year,” Morgan said. “Neither one is a redevelopment plan. Both presented possible approaches that warrant careful consideration as we draft the redevelopment plan.”
He also said the mayor — who sent a memo to the council a day after Goldin’s letter was sent (see letters page 2) — and council “should not be putting out competing press releases that are mere one-branch responses to comments from stakeholders like Steve Goldin.” He said the mayor and council should be working together. Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh agreed with that notion, but reiterated that the memo was sent out in response to council’s request three to four weeks ago that he share his own recommendations with them in moving the process forward, and that it was not a response to Goldin.
Morgan responded to Goldin’s criticism after the meeting, saying his accusations were proposterous. “We did exactly what Mr. Goldin requested,” Morgan said. “We reviewed his concepts. That review was conducted by our consultants, not me.” He said the council did make decisions on Monday night, based on the recommendations of the consultants, and “if he thinks we didn’t, he must have left early.”
“Council did not stray from the recommendations of our consultants,” he said. “To the extent that those reocmmenaitons don’t align with what Mr. Goldin wants, he will complain.” He said Goldin’s criticisms and letter were “politicizing the process” and distracting the council from getting a redevelopment plan written.
He said, it would have been extremely difficult to get any more done during that meeting because it was getting late (the meeting ended at 11:30 p.m.), and that the traffic circulation decisions needed to come before the land use decisions. “Land use is important, of course, but we can’t go on anything other than a deliberate step-by-step process, and the first thing to do is make sure we all agree on the streets and how they connect with Alexander Road and Washington Road.” He said council still needs to discuss those lingering issues associated with the decisions that have been made, including how the intersection of the two roadways through the site will work and how to ensure the proposed intersection at Old Bear Brook Road would not detrimentally impact the surrounding neighborhood. He said he is trying to set up a meeting for Monday, September 22, for those issues to be discussed. He said he has also asked Jaffe to prepare a concept plan using the decisions made by council during the meeting.
