An agreement between Plainsboro and the University Medical Center that designates the hospital as the redeveloper at the former FMC site and sets the completion date for the hospital component at December 31, 2013, will be on the agenda for approval at the Township Committee’s meeting on Wednesday, June 11.##M:[more]##
The project consists of a medical center component, which includes a hospital/medical office portion, a continuing care retirement facility, a general officer research center, a skilled nursing facility, and a public park to be built by the hospital.
“We have a project that they have submitted that is acceptable, and this agreement is designed to provide, for lack of a better term, land use concepts as well as what we expect from this project and what they expect from the township,” said Edward McManimon, the township’s redevelopment attorney, who discussed the details of the agreement during the Township Committee’s May 28 meeting. “They have an obligation under this agreement to build the project.”
If the agreement is approved on June 11, and a site plan is satisfactory to the Development Review Committee, which meets on Wednesday, June 18, the site plan will then move to the Planning Board in July, and redevelopment can begin shortly after the board’s approval. The discussion took place after the township heard a report about the fiscal impact the project would have on the township (see story below).
Under the agreement, the first phase would consist of the medical hospital and office complex, which will have to be completed by 2013, although hospital officials anticipate that it will be completed a year earlier, McManimon. The first phase also includes the skilled nursing facility and the public park. “We expect them to build the skilled nursing facility relatively contemporaneously with the hospital and medical office, and the public park as well,” McManimon said.
“They have a start date and a completion date, which we’ve been liberal with,” McManimon added. “The idea is we’re designating them as the redeveloper. It isn’t forever, and we’re not trying to hold them to a tight schedule. We’re trying to make sure they can build the project and all of the components within a certain time period that is very liberally stated, so that if they don’t do that, they lose their ability to be designated as the redeveloper.”
The second phase, he said, consists of the general office research center and the continuing care retirement community. And because the non-hospital pieces of the site are expected to be owned by other organizations or companies, and not the hospital, the agreement allows for transfers for the project, and authority is given to the township to do that, given those private developers provide necessary information, including timeframes, security procedures, financial data, and other information to township officials.
“We impose all that under the agreement so that the entire project will be built over a period of 15 years, more or less,” McManimon said. “Obviously, all the pieces are expected to come quicker than that.”
The agreement also sorts out other relevant details regarding the redevelopment. The hospital will be obligated to build a public park, but the township has agreed to finance that portion of the project and then assess the costs back to the project to be paid by either the hospital or the other components of the project. “The township will issues debt to finance that, and there’s a significant benefit to doing that so that we have the ability to then have a payment in lieu of taxes agreement for components that are otherwise untaxable,” McManimon said. The agreement also includes a traffic impact component. “There are several intersections and roadways that are impacted by this project, and this agreement also lays those obligations on the part of the developer, which is the hospital or any of these partner developers,” McManimon said.
The agreement also places responsibility for the Council on Affordable Housing obligations generated by the site on the hospital, although the document does not yet specifically state what those obligations would be.
It is understood that other developers will be interacting with the hospital in terms of building the other components of the site. Those private companies will also have to abide by the terms set forth in the agreement, although “there will be some amendments likely for each of those fields because, for instances, they’re not going to be nonprofits,” McManimon said. “There are going to be other things that may be different.”
The agreement also states that each of the private developers have to make an application for payment in lieu of taxes. “The economic components of what’s happening here in the township demand that kind of revenue source,” McManimon said. And the hospital will be required to pay a community impact fee. Because the hospital is tax exempt, “they’re not subject to tax, and as a result you can’t make a payment in lieu of taxes,” McManimon explained. The community impact fee will dissolve in stages, until the continuing care retirement facility comes on board because “by then, we’ll have the skilled nursing facility, and even if we don’t have the office park, we have the continuing care facility producing a payment in lieu of taxes, and those revenues are more than sufficient to deal with the economic impact of the project n the context of revenues. As a result, we don’t need the community impact fee anymore.” The hospital’s annual community impact fees will be $125,”400 and will continue for three years.
The redevelopment process began a year ago when the township designated the 160-acre FMC site as an area in need of redevelopment, which was sent to the Planning Board and then back to the Township Committee. A redevelopment plan was created with the Planning Board and came back to the committee, and since then, the township has had a series of lengthy discussions with the hospital group to get to this point.
“These agreements are not only acceptable, they’re appropriate and authorized in the redevelopment law,” McManimon said.
Cantu told hospital officials: “I think you’ll find the history of Plainsboro has been that once we embrace a project, that we work with that developer to make that project a success. I don’t see that changing.”
