While Plainsboro officials say that there have not yet been any plans submitted to the township by the Princeton-based American Boychoir to relocate to St. Joseph’s Seminary, the American Boychoir is expected to make an announcement regarding a new campus on Tuesday, February 22.
Officials at American Boychoir will be announcing the details at a press conference at 11 a.m. at the Nassau Inn in Princeton. The event will announce the “creation of the Princeton Center for Arts & Education (PCAE), a unique collaborative arts and education campus opening fall, 2011,” stated a press release from the Boychoir.
Although the American Boychoir had indicated over the summer that St. Joseph’s Seminary was among the places it was reconsidering for relocation, officials remained tightlipped on whether the new campus would be located in the Plainsboro facility.
The school confirmed over the summer that it was looking at the possibility of relocating to Plainsboro’s St. Joseph Seminary to provide more facilities for the school. The seminary campus has facilities that its current location does not have, including a performance space and gymnasium.
American Boychoir spokesperson D.J. Downing said on February 15 that further information, including about the location of the campus, would not be released prior to the press conference.
The press release does state that “in celebration of its 75th Anniversary,” the American Boychoir was taking on “a new leadership role to establish a co-ed, multi-dimensional center, assembled on one campus, where arts and educational organizations can share resources while still maintaining their separate identities, individual space, and unique missions.”
Les Varga, Plainsboro’s director of planning and zoning, said that Plainsboro officials have had “very informal discussions” with officials at the American Boychoir, but “we have no application in front of us.”
However, this past fall the Township Committee adopted two ordinances to rezone the St. Joseph’s Seminary property to allow for educational and cultural arts uses on site as well as for a cemetery zone.
The buildings on site are now zoned for educational and arts type uses, including for schools, performance areas, practice areas, dormitories, eating space, and other uses associated with a school.
The seminary attracted attention last summer when the Princeton International Academy Charter School tried to obtain a variance to operate at the seminary — a necessary step in the state approval process that was halted when a discrepancy in notice requirements was found by the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district and recognized by the Zoning Board. The discrepancy prevented the charter school from opening in September.
When asked whether PIACS would be interested in joining the campus created by the American Boychoir, Parker Block, a spokesman for PIACS, said the American Boychoir will be the lead tenant of the future campus and is looking for smaller schools — smaller than what PIACS will be as it adds grades each year — to sublease from them.
“PIACS is unlikely to sub-lease from them,” he said. “I understand that several private schools are interested in being the sub-tenants at the seminary. This in turn will open up locations currently being occupied by those schools. So the situation for 2011-12 is still quite fluid.”
He said PIACS is currently looking at five locations for opening for 2011-’12, but that officials are still assessing the feasibility of each location.
