With an already bustling Plainsboro Village Center area and construction underway for a new state of the art hospital, township officials were on hand for the groundbreaking of two more buildings that will bring medical offices and retail business to the downtown area.
Hosted by Robbinsville-based developer Sharbell Development Corporation, officials broke ground on July 27 on two new buildings that will host medical offices, additional retail space, and eight residential condominium units in the Plainsboro Village Center. The two buildings will border the Market Square, the half-acre village green in the Village Center.
The new medical office building is scheduled to be completed prior to the opening of the new University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro, officials said, so that they will be available to complement and support the added business generated when the hospital opens, a press release stated.
The plans for the two new buildings were unanimously adopted by Plainsboro’s Planning Board last September. When the township’s Village Center was originally approved, it included plans for three buildings that featured commercial uses on the ground level and residential units above. But Sharbell submitted plan changes to essentially transform two of the buildings into one larger medical office building of 30,000 square feet. The buildings were attached in the original plan by two walkways on the second and third floors, but now the footprint will essentially look like one building.
The second building is a 15,000-square-foot building with commercial on the ground floor and residential on the second and third floors.
Located at the intersection of Schalks Crossing and Scudders Mill roads, the Village Center currently features eight buildings with almost 75,000 square feet of retail, commercial, and office space, as well as 11 single-family homes and 12 townhomes. The new Plainsboro Public Library serves as the anchor of the village.
Tom Troy, a principal of Sharbell, said in the press release that the current buildings in the center are nearly 100 percent occupied. “So we felt the time was right to bring these two new buildings online, particularly the medical office space,” he stated. “Our current tenants are doing well, so it’s also a good time to bring in the new retail space.”
Mayor Peter Cantu, Township Committeemen Neil Lewis, Nuran Nabi, Michael Weaver, and Ed Yates; Les Varga, the director of planning and zoning; and Ron Yake, the township’s planner and zoning officer, all attended the groundbreaking.
Cantu said officials were pleased to help kick off construction of the new buildings, which he called an “integral part” of the overall plan for the Village Center. “This project has proven to be a real boost for our community,” he said. “It really is our town center — a Plainsboro destination for shoppers and visitors and a great opportunity for local businesses. We anticipate that this next phase will bring even more value to the community.”
