The redevelopment of Princeton Junction’s downtown area may have officially begun. The owner of Cyzner Properties has acknowledged that a deal to purchase the 16-acre Acme shopping center site will be completed “shortly.”
Irv Cyzner is hoping to hit the ground running once it happens. Among his plans? Possibly a high-end food store (such as gourmet powerhouse Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market in New York City), a “white tablecloth restaurant,” and a bakery.
Sources with knowledge of the deal have pointed to this Friday, May 7, as the date Cyzner will sign a contract to complete the deal to purchase the dilapidated shopping center from the Courtney family. Cyzner could not comment when asked whether the date was accurate. He also said he could not provide the sale price of the property.
However, he was willing to talk about his plans for the Princeton-Hightstown Road shopping center. “We, of course, will be going in before the town to get this project forward. We’re trying to create a nice shopping experience for somebody visiting our center.”
“We’re going to try to merchandise it with a mix of different services and retail businesses,” he said. His company certainly has over 30 years of experience with this type of development.
The Somerset-based developer lists more than 40 properties on its website, including many banks, pavilions, plazas, pharmacies, office parks, and Dunkin’ Donuts locations in towns including Chatham, Greenbrook, Cranford, Flemington, Berlin, North Brunswick, Edison, and Point Pleasant, to name a few. The website also states that Cyzner Properties is a member of both the U.S Green Building Council and LEED certified builders.
Cyzner was informed of the possibility to purchase the former Acme site because of his involvement developing two bank buildings for Bank of America. “They suggested we should perhaps look at this site,” he said. “It’s been kind of neglected. It could use a complete face lift and redo, and we do that sort of work.”
He said he anticipates a number of white tablecloth restaurants, a bakery, and several eating places. “We’re going to have an upscale food retailer — it won’t be a supermarket,” he said, adding that he had something like Balducci’s in mind.
Cyzner said there is “no question” that there was a market for a store like Balducci’s in West Windsor. “Not only do we have an affluent area, but we have a very large and desirable daytime business population. The consumer is basically very sophisticated in that market. We intend to deliver a nice, appealing shopping center for them.”
Will the current tenants, like Bagel Hole and Rite Aid, remain in the Windsor Shopping Plaza? “We’re going to encourage our customers there to upgrade their retail stores and to match pretty much what we’re doing to the outside,” said Cyzner. “Our goal is to create a good experience. The architecture is a very inviting, beautiful village.”
Architectural renderings, labeled CP Princeton Junction LLC and designed by Philadelphia architects Albert Taus and Associates, were already on display in the window of a vacant store adjacent to Century 21 Abrams, Hutchinson, & Associates.
Cyzner said the architect “took into account the direction the town wanted to go in” when creating the renderings. However, the drawings are very preliminary at this point and are one of about seven ideas the developer is considering.
“We are trying to use the design that the town is recommending to go and create a very creative and distinctive environment that provides a synergistic experience,” he explained. “We’re trying to bring energy to the area.”
Cyzner says his track record over the past 30 years enabled him to try to purchase the property, since it is “very difficult to finance projects today,” said Cyzner. “Many, many people have looked at it,” he said of the site.
Cyzner has high hopes for the property. “Perhaps down the road, when the economy is more hospitable and the banking environment becomes more hospitable, we would love to entertain the possibility of adding another link to the property close to the streetscape.”
As for a timeline, Cyzner said he hopes to move the project forward as soon as possible, but it will fall subject to township review and the planning process. Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, he said, “has been very active in trying to bring change to that particular area.”
“He’s been a positive force in trying to move things forward in this difficult economic environment,” said Cyzner.
Hsueh announced late last month that a deal was imminent in the coming weeks, although he could not give details.
Shortly after the Acme closed last May, the Dreher Group, a Princeton-based commercial developer that also owns the Rite-Aid pharmacy site across the road from the Acme, had reportedly been under contract to buy the entire shopping center — formally known as Windsor Plaza — from the Courtney family, the original owners of the center. Rumors circulated that Dreher was looking to bring a high-end Kings market to the center, but the deal ultimately fell through.
The family hired a new management company, Silbert Real Estate and Management Inc. of Millington, to handle leasing of the center.
Complicating the process has been the fact that the McDowell family, the descendants of the Courtney family, which currently owns the Acme center, live in different locations throughout the country, including Missouri and California, and contact had been difficult.
Also, the family had been undergoing a transition of ownership, from the grandfather to his six grandchildren. As is routine with any property transfer, the state has required the family to have environmental clearance before moving
forward. They had been undergoing the environmental inventory as part of state Department of Environmental Protection policy.
@$:Work on those environmental issues has already begun at the Shell gas station, which is located in front of the Acme on the corner of Princeton-Hightstown and Alexander Road, which is now expected to be closed through July.
Hsueh said this week that “there is a clear indication the gas station actually has some of the plume running in a direction that goes through the Acme property.”
This work is part of the DEP clean-up program, Hsueh said. “They had to identify the source of the pollution,” he said. “Definitely, this is a source of the pollution. This is something the gas station will have to take care of. The responsible party will have to deal with the issue,” which is in accordance with state law, Hsueh said.
According to Larry Ragonese, press information director for the DEP, Shell is installing an active treatment system for soil and groundwater remediation.
“What they’re putting in is 15 dual-phase extraction points, and literally, each of those points are being put into the ground, and there will be a vacuum-type device on the pipes to suck out volatile organic compounds,” Ragonese explained. “The plan will be to tie all of these individual extraction points together into one connected system.”
Ragonese said the ground contains gasoline compounds. It is estimated to take 14 weeks to completely construct the system, he added. “It should be operational by July, at which point they’ll start to look at it and see how effective it is. The hope is to suck out all of the volatiles from the soil.” A progress report is expected by September, 2010.
