Devil of a deal, or is it a deal with the devil?

PACKET EDITORIAL, Oct. 12

By: Packet Editorial
   Depending upon one’s point of view, the deal announced this week between Sarnoff Corp. and Princeton University either spares the Route 1 corridor another unwelcome, unsightly, sprawling, traffic-generating development or merely puts it off until some unspecified date in the future.
   The optimists among us will hail the university’s planned purchase of 90 acres of prime Sarnoff property fronting on Route 1. The university, after all, has no immediate plans to extend its campus across the Millstone River into West Windsor. Even if and when it does, it can build on all that land it owns between the river and Route 1 (the soccer fields and the so-called "Fete" field) before it even has to think about developing the other side of Route 1.
   So that precious 90-acre parcel in front of Sarnoff’s research facility — one of the few scenic vistas of open space still gracing the Route 1 corridor — will be in no imminent danger of development if the university’s purchase of the property goes through. Sarnoff, which wants to expand its 600,000-square-foot facility into a major technology campus, had planned to put about 800,000 square feet of research, office and hotel space on the 90-acre site; selling the land to the university will reduce the size of the proposed technology campus from about 2.9 million to about 2.1 million square feet.
   So Sarnoff cuts its expansion plans by about 25 percent, Princeton University gets a piece of valuable property that it has no immediate plans to develop, motorists along Route 1 can continue to savor at least one unspoiled view and neighbors concerned about traffic and quality of life can breathe a whole lot easier.
   So who could possibly find fault with this deal? The pessimists among us, of course.
   First, they will look at the details of the university’s agreement with Sarnoff. Significantly, the sale of the 90 acres will go through only if Sarnoff’s general development plan, including the 800,000 square feet proposed for the site, is approved by West Windsor. Even though Princeton says it has no intention of developing the site, it will not buy it without this approval — which, it should be noted, would greatly enhance the value of the property.
   The university’s interest may simply be to increase the worth, on paper, of its already considerable real estate holdings. Or it may be to build its own research facility somewhere down the road that would tie in with Sarnoff. Then again, the university could decide to make a tidy profit by selling the property to a developer, who would promptly exercise the general development plan approval and put up an 800,000-square-foot monstrosity.
   It isn’t as though Princeton University has never put its land to profitable use in the past. Right next door in Plainsboro, the Forrestal campus, established in 1951 on an 825-acre tract containing 16 laboratory buildings, has grown to 1,600 acres containing offices, research facilities and light industry, along with townhouses, apartments, a hotel and a shopping area.
   And that doesn’t include proposed development of the former Princeton Nurseries lands along Mapleton Road, which the university purchased as an investment and now plans to turn into a 220-unit luxury condominium complex and 2 million square feet of office and retail space.
   Is this what Princeton University has in mind for the Sarnoff property? We hope not. We’d like to join with the optimists in believing that the university will neither sell the property to a commercial developer nor develop the land itself until its own expansion needs require it. We suspect the latter condition won’t come to pass for many, many years. And that’s how long we’d like to see at least one small piece of Route 1 frontage remain blessedly green.