The West Windsor Planning Board has approved a new plan for Princeton University, which is looking to build storage buildings on its township property to the west of Route 1.
The preliminary and final site plan approval was granted by the board on May 18 without opposition from residents, who had opposed a previous plan by the university to construct the storage units on a Harrison Street site.
Instead, the plans call for the construction of a maintenance yard with six storage buildings at 10,000 square feet each, as well as two smaller buildings — a 2,660 square foot prefabricated office unit and a 2,520 square foot maintenance building — on 108.9-acre site in the education zone on Washington Road.
According to Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner, the university submitted a new plan to ease concerns raised by residents when the first application was approved after coming before the board in October, 2009.
In that application, the board mandated a cleanup of the university’s 80-acre site off Lower Harrison Street before unanimously approving the proposal for five storage warehouses on the site. The original plan proposed only five storage units on a piece of farmland stretching between Harrison Street and Washington Road, adjacent to watersheds for both the Delaware & Raritan Canal and the Millstone River.
Residents, however, opposed the plan over concerns the new structures would increase flooding of their homes, which had already been occurring in the area. Residents were also concerned about traffic being brought into the area as a result of the proposed warehouses and noise.
The university officials cited these concerns for submitting the new application. “The university claims that was one of their considerations, and they decided they were going to relocate those buildings to Washington,” said Gardner. “They want to build six this time. Each of them are about 10,000 square feet for the storage of equipment and building materials.”
Gardner says the university will build the site in phases, with the two smaller office and maintenance buildings and two of the 10,000 square foot storage buildings being constructed first. The remaining four will be built over time.
“In addition, there will be a parking facility for 93 cars,” said Gardner. “That will be for either their employees who will park there or perhaps even contractors who are doing work on the main campus.”
The application approval required a number of minor waivers. As for the former application, Gardner says the university wanted to retain approval for the prior plan in the event that “unforeseen problems arose with respect to this [new] approval.”
“What we agreed to was that they suspend their rights with respect to the prior application until they apply for construction permits,” he said. “In the event that there is an application for a construction permit, then the approval would be withdrawn by the university on the earlier situation.”
In addition to the six storage buildings and two smaller administrative buildings, plans also call for three fenced storage yards totaling 291,400 square feet and other site amenities, including landscaping, driveways and fencing. The site on Washington Road is approximately 1,760 feet west of Penn’s Neck Circle.
