The Plainsboro Planning Board has adopted an amendment to its Master Plan that would enable the rezoning of the St. Joseph’s Seminary property on Mapleton Road to allow for education uses on the site.
In addition to the controversial Princeton International Academy Charter School, the 44-acre site has reportedly attracted interest from a variety of area institutions, including the notable Princeton-based American Boychoir and French American School of Princeton, both of which are rumored to be looking to occupy space at the location, which currently serves as a Catholic retreat center.
The amendment — adopted August 2 — designates the zone as an educational and cultural arts area. Now work will begin on crafting the complementary regulatory ordinances enacting that amendment, said Les Varga, the township’s director of planning and zoning.
That process will take a few months, and the ordinances ultimately will have to be approved by the Township Committee, Varga added. “We’ve accomplished recasting the use in terms of the Master Plan on the site, and that will go along way to preserving the property as, essentially, you see it now.”
The prospects of restoring educational uses at this particular site has already been contemplated. It attracted attention this summer when the controversial Princeton International Academy Charter School tried to obtain a variance to operate at the seminary — a necessary step in the state approval process that was halted when a discrepancy in notice requirements was found by the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district and recognized by the Zoning Board.
However, this Master Plan amendment apparently has nothing to do with the PIACS saga. Rather, it is indicative of the seminary’s goals and plans for the site, as well as officials’ desire to preserve the site and its historical architecture, said Varga.
“It was used as an educational facility at one point,” he said. “Seminary uses are still permitted on the property.” But the amendment will “recast the property for educational and cultural uses to permit schools to go in there and really to preserve the grounds in the building for that use.”
Varga said that the seminary will continue to be owned by the Eastern Province of the Congregation of St. Vincent de Paul — known as the Vincentians.
The seminary is zoned in the OB-1 zone, which permits office and business uses on the site, which “certainly would not preserve” the site, Varga said. “It permits office and business uses to come into the property, whether to use the buildings or use other pieces of the property, or actually tear the buildings down.”
“The whole idea is to preserve the buildings and the grounds,” Varga added. “The best way to do that is to bring back the use of the property as it was once envisioned, and that was for educational purposes.”
St. Joseph’s was built in 1914, when it served as a high school and college seminary for the Vincentians. New buildings were added in 1960, and part of the seminary became the home of the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood community. After the Missionary Sisters, who provided domestic service for the seminary, retired in 1982, the building was used occasionally to accommodate guests for retreats and meetings.
Work began in 1988 to renovate the facility into a modern retreat center. The seminary’s Gothic chapel was also restored and was opened in 1989. By 1992, the seminary graduated its last class of 10 teenage boys after 78 years, citing declining numbers of young men interested in becoming priests.
Up until that point, the seminary had served as a boarding high school for young men contemplating the priesthood.
Calls to attorney Rich Goldman, of the Drinker Biddle & Reath law firm on College Road East, who represents the seminary, as well as to Ofer Ohad, of New York-based construction management firm DBI Inc., which manages the seminary site, were not returned.
According to published reports, the American Boychoir has been looking into the possibility of expanding and relocating in the Princeton area because it is outgrowing its current space on Lambert Drive in Princeton Township. The reports also said that the French American School is considering expansion and has also explored the idea of moving to the seminary. The report said that neither institution has made any commitments.
D.J. Downing, a spokeswoman for the American Boychoir, and Corinne Gungor, head of the French American School, did not return calls seeking comment about their institutions’ plans regarding the seminary location.
As for PIACS, while officials haven’t ruled out the seminary as a potential home for the school, officials have acknowledged looking at other sites because the seminary is looking at bringing in a consortium of schools to the facility.
It is rumored — and reported in other media earlier this month — that PIACS is considering adding a third grade to its plans for a kindergarten-through-second grade school. But it would have to forfeit its charter and reapply to the state Department of Education if it does so, the report stated. Parker Block, a spokesman and co-founder of the school, as well as Bonnie Liao, lead founder, could not be reached for comment on this matter by press time.
A confluence of events shut down PIACS officials’ efforts to open next month. The last and final blow this year was PIACs’ failure to obtain an extension from the state to buy time to get zoning approval from Plainsboro Township to move into St. Joseph’s Seminary.
A July 19 hearing on PIACS’ application for a variance to occupy St. Joseph’s Seminary was canceled at the last minute, upon request of the charter school itself, as a result of the state Department of Education’s denial of an extension of a July 15 deadline to obtain a certificate of occupancy (CO) for the Mapleton Road seminary. PIACS missed the original deadline due to the postponement of the originally scheduled Zoning Board hearing due to a technicality on July 7.
The CO was the last step in the final approval for the charter school to open in September. However, the DOE did give the charter school an entire year to find a facility and obtain a CO — without having to repeat the process of re-applying for its charter at the state level. PIACS officials hope to open in September, 2011.
Block said that the lease agreement that PIACS had with St. Joseph’s Seminary was contingent upon the school receiving the official charter from the DOE, which it did not obtain because it missed the deadline.
