An arts center would be built on the Westminster campus and shared by the college and high school, under the proposal.
By: Jeff Milgram
The Princeton Regional Board of Education’s Facilities Committee has begun preliminary discussions with the Westminster Choir College of Rider University about jointly operating a performing and creative arts center.
The center would be located on the northwest corner of the choir college campus at Franklin Avenue and Walnut Lane, according to Frank Strasburger, vice president of the school board and chairman of the committee.
The Rev. Strasburger told the school board Tuesday night that Rider University President Bart Luedeke has appointed a steering committee that will meet with Dave Kingston and Susan Canter of the Hillier Group of West Windsor, the architects hired by the school board to plan a districtwide expansion and modernization program.
According to a report issued by the Facilities Committee, the Hillier Group will meet with a group of Princeton Regional arts teachers and administrators. Hillier expects to present the Rider and Princeton Regional Schools groups conceptual options "and we should know shortly thereafter whether we are prepared to recommend a collaborative plan to our respective boards," according to the report.
The performing arts center is a project that neither Rider nor the Princeton Regional district can build alone, the Rev. Strasburger said.
The comprehensive construction project will ease overcrowding, permit the school district to modernize science laboratories and build more spaces for the arts. One of the options open to the architects is a plan to construct a campus that would link Princeton High School, the John Witherspoon School and the Westminster Choir College.
According to the Rev. Strasburger, the Hillier Group called the district’s plans "ambitious but realistic," and the architects believe much of the planning for the construction project can be completed by the end of the year.
The Facilities Committee has also held two meetings with members of the Princeton Public Library’s Board of Trustees to discuss relocating the library, either temporarily or permanently, to the old Valley Road School building.
According to the committee report, the school board "would explore the possibility of a multi-use facility at Valley Road to house the library, offices for the Princeton Regional School Board and central administration, Corner House and other functions yet to be determined" if the new library cannot be built on the current site on Witherspoon Street.
The Rev. Strasburger said this option might not be necessary because Harry Levine, president of the library’s trustees, "is fairly confident at this time that the library will be able to remain in its current location."
If the library can be rebuilt at its current site, the school board has been discussing the option of letting the library move temporarily into the Princeton Township half of the Valley Road building. The other half houses the school district’s administrative offices.
The Facilities Committee has been discussing with Princeton Township officials the possibility of moving its maintenance facilities and bus parking now located behind the Valley Road building to a more peripheral site in the township.
"The township is exploring the possibility of making land available to us for these purposes," the Facilities Committee report said.