Just as the West Windsor Township Council prepares to take a look at Hillier’s draft redevelopment plan for the 350 acres encompassing the Princeton Junction train station area, a new player has come into the redevelopment mix.##M:[more]##
The Dreher Group, a commercial real estate developer based in Princeton, now has a contract to purchase the Acme Shopping Center at 64 Princeton-Hightstown Road, which, according to tax records, is assessed at $9,”572,”000. The deal has not yet been closed, however.
The question that has yet to be answered is what the Dreher Group plans to do with the Acme site. Some have speculated the developer might “skin” the buildings and make esthetic improvements, not demolish or re-work the site.
InterCap Holdings — another redevelopment area landowner which owns 25 acres on Washington Road in the redevelopment area — has proposed demolition. InterCap officials are saying that the possible purchase is a major example of why the council needs to move forward with a redevelopment plan by the end of the year.
“We are delighted that the Dreher Group has signed a contract to purchase the Acme Shopping Center,” said InterCap CEO Steve Goldin, whose firm has proposed its own concept plan for the entire 350-acre redevelopment area, including the Acme center. “For too many years, this eyesore has defined ‘downtown’ West Windsor. We are pleased that the vision for a new Main Street — which InterCap Holdings put forth — now has the potential to be realized with the total demolition and redevelopment of the Acme site.”
Goldin’s own proposals for the area suggest tearing down the strip mall buildings and placing the same uses on site — a supermarket and retail space — but redesigning them in a way that would frame a community green space in his proposals. His Main Street proposals included various retail shops, including the revival of an ice cream shop similar to the “Lick It” establishment formerly located on Princeton-Hightstown Road, with residential units located above the retail.
All together, Goldin’s proposal calls for 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.
But Richard Dreher, of the Dreher Group, based at 166 Nassau Street, has not elaborated on what he plans to do with the Acme site if the purchase goes through. Dreher declined to be interviewed for this story, saying in a note to the News, “I am not prepared to comment at this time.”
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh says his understanding is that Dreher’s major concern is that he wants to make sure it will be a profitable property if he is to buy it. But, “we have no idea what he wants to do, and nobody knows exactly what the conditions are.”
He said Dreher has indicated he will improve the site and make it more attractive, but officials are not sure exactly what that entails. And he says Dreher has every right to develop the property the way he wants under current zoning, since there is not yet a redevelopment plan set in place.
West Windsor Council President Charles Morgan says, however, that the possible purchase “just shows how unrealistic people have been to believe the pretty pictures Steve Goldin has been putting in front of us.”
Morgan says he heard that Dreher plans to refurbish the facility to make it look nicer and more attractive. Morgan said some township officials want to see the Acme buildings torn down, flipped, and moved out near Route 571, with parking located behind, but “the market’s moving faster than our ability to get a redevelopment plan out there.”
“You could imagine the financial implications of having to buy out all those leases, tearing the buildings down, not having rents coming in while they’re being rebuilt,” Morgan added. “It seems unrealistic.”
In addition, “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of appetite for West Windsor to step up financial support that would encourage that,” Morgan added.
“There are no real incentives to do anything other than what the Dreher Group is proposing,” Morgan says. “Just like with the moving of the power sub station, it is financially impractical and completely unrealistic to expect anything will happen to the Acme Shopping Center other than dressing it up.”
Still, Goldin, who has said publicly he had tried to purchase the Acme site from the family that owns the property, said he is “assuming that his intent is to proceed with the plan we laid out.”
When asked whether he thought Dreher’s possible purchase of the site would impact his own proposals, Goldin says he has always said that it makes sense to have three different developers for redevelopment — one for the InterCap site, one for Main Street, and one for the transit area.
Goldin did say that Dreher’s possible purchase of the site is an indication that private capital is watching the progress of redevelopment and the likelihood of its implementation and is willing to risk investment on the assumption that redevelopment will occur.
“This is a sign that the private development community is excited about the prospect of redevelopment in West Windsor, as are we, and that once a redevelopment plan is in place, as the economy recovers, investment will flow into West Windsor’s tax base,” Goldin said. “This definitely would not have happened without redevelopment, and will not happen without redevelopment.”
In fact, Goldin says the process his company has undergone, including a series of public meetings to release and describe his plans for the area, has “given confidence to other private developers to risk their capital, like we have, in an effort to improve West Windsor.”
“When so many are unable to see past the clouds of the current economic storm, those professionals who have navigated these waters in years past know that the sun will come out tomorrow, and those who have a plan will be best-prepared to meet opportunity,” Goldin said.
He said he hopes council will move forward with the redevelopment plan, so that the township will remain ahead of the curve as the economy recovers. The township needs a plan that makes sense and is economically viable, said Goldin. “If you have a (redevelopment) plan that the development community has no interest in building, then you don’t have a plan, and therefore, you don’t have any of the public amenities that have been discussed.”
Morgan, however, says he sees the possible acquisition as an example of how redevelopment on Route 571 has been happening already. “The same Dreher Group got final plans that they have yet to submit for the Rite Aid and what will be a Starbucks and a restaurant where the old Al’s Sunoco station is located, across from Ellsworth, and where the little Chicken Holiday strip is. Some of the same folks have been talking about acquiring the Crawford property next store, across from Al’s Sunoco.”
The Dreher Group did come before the township Zoning Board this past year with a plan for a 14,”673 square foot Rite Aid, and an additional 6,”000 square feet of retail space for the Starbucks coffee shop and an Italian restaurant. The plan calls for the new buildings, to be constructed with a minimum setback from Princeton-Hightstown Road. The structures would have a brick facade, to match the new PNC Bank built on the opposing corner of the intersection. Officials have called the intersection a key location because it acts as the gateway to downtown Princeton Junction area.
Under Dreher’s plan, the Starbucks retail center will be located at the corner of the property near the corner of Princeton-Hightstown and Cranbury roads, reflecting a request by township planners. Previous plans proposed for the site located the pharmacy at the corner. Rite Aid purchased the two properties in 2005 — the service station site from Al and Patti Swingle, and the shopping center from Al and Jackie Macli. However, final plans for the buildings have yet to come before the township for approval.
Morgan said he and Councilwoman Heidi Kleinman “jumped on the Princeton Junction overlay ordinance a year and a half ago to set some standards,” because they felt it needed to be improved. “It just goes to show that development happens when you’re not looking,” Morgan said.
Councilman Will Anklowitz said the Rite Aid project produced one affordable housing unit as an obligation, which would not have a heavy impact on the “face of West Windsor” at all, and that the experience the township has had with the Rite Aid property and with the Dreher Group so far has been mostly a positive one.
Anklowitz says that while many are worried about the economy, West Windsor’s is still going strong, and with a strong economy here, comes a demand for retail. “There’s a demand for lots of small box kind of retail,” Anklowitz said. “I don’t think we need another Target or Kohl’s store, but the kind of small box retails, such as the Rite Aid development, seems to me something residents would be for.”
Apparently, the Rite Aid property and the Acme shopping center are not the only sites the Dreher Group has had its eyes on. According to Franklin Crawford, who owns Princeton Microfilm Corporation, also on Princeton-Hightstown Road, Dreher was under contract with him for the purchase of his site, but Dreher never went through with the deal.
The deal was for a 45,”000 square foot building on 1.7 acres, adjacent to the proposed Rite Aid, in between the Sun Bank and where the Rite Aid will be located. “He had six months of due diligence, and I extended him another 60 days,” Crawford said. “Then, two or three days before the extension of that,” he pulled out, he said.
Crawford said Dreher had come up with conceptual ideas for the site, but “he wrote me a letter saying he was unable to close and that he regretted it.”
Regarding Dreher’s possible purchase of the Acme site, Crawford said: “He may have things under contract, but I don’t know whether he’ll close or not. It seems like he wants to do a lot, but it seems like nothing gets done.”
Currently, Crawford in not under contract with a purchaser for the site, but says two other parties were interested in the property before Dreher. One of them came back after the Dreher deal fell through and had even drawn some concepts for the building. He even had agreed on a price with Crawford. However, the prospective buyer showed his concepts to township officials and was told that he would not be able to stick a shovel into the ground for at least three years because of the redevelopment project, and he decided it was not worth it to buy the property, Crawford said.
Crawford says he wants to retire and sell, but says “nothing seems to get done” in West Windsor. “Plainsboro is an example of progress and activity,” he said. “They have a $400 million hospital that we could have had.”
“The blight over here behind the Dunkin Donuts has been there for 22 years without anything being done, and it’s a despicable looking site,” said Crawford, who has run is company here 45 years.
