Hospital to relocate to FMC site in Plainsboro

Site at Route 1 and Plainsboro Road selected

By: David Campbell
   The Princeton HealthCare System Board of Trustees voted late Monday night to build PHCS’s new $350 million state-of-the-art hospital campus on the site of the FMC Corporation Research Center located at Route 1 and Plainsboro Road in Plainsboro Township.
   PHCS has scheduled a news conference for 2 p.m. today at University Medical Center at Princeton, during which hospital officials plan to identify the buyers for the UMCP facility on Witherspoon Street, the Merwick Rehab Hospital & Nursing Care facility on Bayard Lane, and the Franklin Avenue lot adjacent to UMCP.
   The FMC research center is located on the site selected for the new hospital campus. FMC Corp. and PHCS are working on an agreement to lease space on the property where the company can continue its current research and affiliated activities, PHCS said.
   PHCS President and CEO Barry Rabner said Monday night that the Plainsboro Road site is in the center of PHCS’s service area and where the majority of its patients are concentrated. He added it is an area with the fastest-growing population in this region.
   There are four entry points to the future campus, all of which are accessible from Route 1, and doctors’ offices will be built on the campus to provide greater convenience to patients, Mr. Rabner continued.
   "We are pleased that patients will be able to easily access the hospital from a number of directions and thoroughfares," he said.
   A total of 18 possible locations were considered. Mr. Rabner said the FMC site was chosen based on criteria that included its three-mile proximity to the current UMCP location, ease of access, development potential, and strategic and market considerations.
   The FMC site in Plainsboro was not among the three recently identified by PHCS as contender sites — a Carnegie Center property in West Windsor Township, former Princeton Nurseries lands in Plainsboro, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb site in Lawrence Township.
   In recent days, PHCS also had alluded to two other potential relocation sites, but declined to identify them.
   In 2003, FMC Corp. officials denied rumors that the company had held talks with PHCS concerning the possible sale of all or part of its roughly 160-acre property straddling Plainsboro Road, about half of which is undeveloped.
   Architecture firm Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, in partnership with West Windsor-based Hillier Architecture, has been retained to design the new complex, which will cost $350 million, including land, construction and new technology, PHCS said.
   Architect J. Robert Hillier, principal of Hillier Architecture, also worked with PHCS, with input from Princeton residents and officials, to devise possible redevelopment proposals for the current Witherspoon Street site.
   PHCS plans to build an 800,000-square-foot medical facility, including medical office space, with the goal of expanding to 1.2 million square feet over time.
   The campus will house a 269-bed hospital and medical offices and will provide on-site services including outpatient care and medical and surgical services.
   Mr. Rabner said that once the site is approved for building, it will take about three years from groundbreaking to complete the construction of the new medical campus.
   PHCS plans to file an application Wednesday for a certificate of need for the new campus with the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
   PHCS board Chairman Jack Chamberlin said the board has been "integrally involved" in strategic and relocation planning over the past three years.
   "Today’s announcement is the culmination of this work, and we are very fortunate to have the support of our medical staff, our employees, and most importantly, the patients we serve as we embark on this important and ambitious project," Mr. Chamberlin said.
   Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu, citing the regional importance of the hospital, said, "We look forward to starting a fruitful and positive dialogue with hospital representatives to explore the issues and challenges that this project presents to Plainsboro."
   The hospital will be designed with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, eco-friendly building code in mind.
   UMCP also will participate in the Pebble Project, a joint research effort of The Center for Health Design, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, and selected health-care providers, to measure how design can make a difference in quality of care and financial performance of a facility, PHCS said.
   PHCS plans to hold a series of public meetings over the next several months to gather community input on the hospital.
   The design of the new facility will be developed over the next year, PHCS said.
   Monday night’s decision closes a chapter for the PHCS-owned UMCP facility that began nearly a year ago, when the trustees voted to build a new hospital on at least 50 acres within two to six miles of the current campus.
   The decision is the culmination of several years of exhaustive planning and community outreach by PHCS, as well as by municipal leaders in Princeton, who have been weighing how best to reuse the current hospital site on Witherspoon Street.
   Next week, the Princeton Regional Planning Board is scheduled to open a public hearing on two proposed amendments to the Princeton Community Master Plan that, if approved, would pave the way for new zoning for — and ultimately the redevelopment of — the current UMCP site.
   The proposed Master Plan amendments would permit the hospital land to be redeveloped for primarily residential uses with limited office and retail.
   The public hearings are scheduled to begin at the board’s regularly scheduled Dec. 8 meeting.