With the construction on the hospital underway, plans for three new buildings in Plainsboro’s Village Center — two of which are expected to hold medical offices — may be heading to Plainsboro’s Planning Board as early as Monday, September 21.##M:[more]##
When the township’s Village Center was originally approved, it included plans for a few buildings that featured commercial uses on the ground level and residential units above, according to Les Varga, the township’s director of planning and zoning.
“Now, with the hospital very much a reality, there is a plan change that is going to the Planning Board to essentially keep two buildings attached as a medical office buildings,” he said. “Sharbell has been working with a group of doctors to do that.”
Facing the new library from the fountain location, there is an open field directly to the left, across the street from the First Constitution Bank parking area. Crossing the street there would touch the southern border of the proposed site for the new buildings, Varga said.
Plans include two medical office buildings, totaling 30,”000 square feet, at least half of which would consist of medical offices located right in the village, said Varga. “There may be other offices in there,” Varga said. Sharbell, however, is not sure whether it will use the whole building or half of it for medical offices, but “the assumption is that it would be medically-related,” Varga added.
“There is another 15,”000-square foot building with commercial on the ground floor and residential on floors two and three,” Varga added. “Whether they are condominiums or apartments has yet to be determined.”
The original Village Center plans called for commercial and residential uses, but the developer is looking to capitalize on the village’s very close location to the hospital. “For the village, there’s everything that comes along with visiting the doctor,” Varga said. “There is foot traffic and having to wait. Besides the library and doctor’s offices and the shops and restaurants, this is the mixed-use mentality that a Town Center needs, not just one use.”
The change in the plans has been reviewed by the township’s Development Review Committee, where certain comments were made to Sharbell officials. In order to advance to the next step, which is a visit to the Planning Board, Sharbell officials need to resubmit their plans with the recommended changes and comments from the DRC in order to have it on the agenda for the September 21 meeting, Varga said.
Located on 50 acres of a 160-acre site in Plainsboro off Route 1, the new University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro (UMCPP) is a replacement hospital for the current UMCP on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. When the new hospital opens in late 2011, it will consist of 636,”000 square feet of interior space, including 237 single patient rooms.
In July, construction crews broke ground on the care and rehabilitation center, which is being developed by Windsor Health Care. The long-term care facility will be located directly south of the new hospital. The 105,”000-square-foot New Merwick Center will consist of a cluster of buildings on over six acres overlooking the Millstone River and a 35-acre park. The facility will contain 80 beds of sub-acute care and 120 beds of long-term care.
