Downtown garage plan OK’d

Development approved by 5-1 vote; opposition suit threatens delay.

By: Jennifer Potash
   Barring intervention from the courts or construction-related delays, Princeton Borough will have a new downtown parking garage by December. The Borough Council approved the development Tuesday night by a 5-1 vote.
   The casting of votes was a fairly somber affair and afterward, despite applause from supporters in the audience, the council promptly adjourned the meeting and went home.
   "I want to thank everyone for all the time put into this and we shall continue on," said Mayor Marvin Reed, who first proposed a downtown garage four years ago. On Wednesday, the mayor said the absence of a celebration was a respectful gesture to opponents. "We didn’t want to rub it in," he said.
   The vote followed more than an hour of public comment during which numerous opponents urged the council either to delay the vote or put the entire project to referendum.
   "I do not have confidence in your signing this development agreement," said Jim Firestone, a Vandeventer Avenue resident and president of Concerned Citizens of Princeton, a nonprofit group that opposes the borough’s plan and has filed a lawsuit to stop it. "It’s a big plan that the taxpayers will pay dearly for."
   The lawsuit is slated for a hearing Feb. 21 in Mercer County Superior Court, said Robert Zagoria, co-counsel for Concerned Citizens.
   Borough officials maintain the project will not require taxpayer support because it will generate revenue from a combination of land-lease payments, parking income and payments in lieu of taxes. Income from the project will also replace the roughly $500,000 in parking revenue generated by the two surface parking lots the borough counts on each year for its operating budget, officials said.
   The project will be completed in phases.
   The first phase involves the Park & Shop lot off Spring Street and will contain the 500-space parking garage, a five-story mixed-use building and a plaza. If all the needed permits are obtained by mid-February, construction of the garage would commence by mid-March, said Robert Powell, principal with developer Nassau HKT Associates.
   Both Mayor Reed and Mr. Powell said the goal is to open the garage by early December. The developer’s agreement stipulates a date of Dec. 31.
   The mixed-use building, with a restaurant on the ground floor and 24 apartments on the upper floors, will be completed by the first quarter of 2004 and the plaza by fall 2004, Mr. Powell said.
   Construction of the second phase, a five-story mixed-use building on the Tulane Street lot, will begin following completion of the garage. Phase Three centers on a small lot off Witherspoon Street but the plan is still to be defined.
   The council spent more than an hour Tuesday reviewing the details of the very complex, 300-page developer’s agreement.
   Cost increases were identified for additional excavation at the site and for security systems in the garage. Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi said the $13.5 million bond issue approved by the council in December has an ample contingency to cover these increases.
   As with the Dec. 17 bond ordinance, the Borough Council approval of the developer’s agreement came in a 5-1 vote.
   Councilman Roger Martindell, a longtime critic of a downtown garage, cast the lone dissenting vote, citing, among other reasons, the size of overall development and an inadequate financial return to the borough. But Mr. Martindell said he could have been persuaded to vote for the plan had it gone to nonbinding referendum.
   Councilman David Goldfarb said a referendum would be unfair because people would not take the time to learn the details on the very complex project.
   "I am looking forward to three or four years from now when the project is complete. I’m confident that when everybody sees it up and running, those people who have concerns will feel their concerns are unjustified," Mr. Goldfarb said.
   Councilwoman Wendy Benchley, a staunch supporter of the garage who also sought compromises to lessen the scale of the development, said the plan was a good compromise.
   Councilman Joseph O’Neill did not speak at the meeting but provided the borough clerk and reporters with a two-page statement on his reasons for supporting the garage, which included the plaza and the addition of 200 parking spaces downtown.
   "Is it worth it? I believe it is," Mr. O’Neill wrote. "That’s why I’m voting for downtown redevelopment."