Engineering facility at university gets Planning Board approval

Three-story structure near Mudd Library to replace parking lot

By: Courtney Gross
   Boosting Princeton University’s plans for further expansion, the Regional Planning Board of Princeton unanimously approved an Operations Research and Financial Engineering building Thursday evening.
   The building, slated for Olden Lane, will abut the Seeley G. Mudd Library, comprise 46,700 square feet and house the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences/Operations, Research and Financial Engineering.
   Constructed primarily of glass, the building will be three stories and occupy a site that is currently a 34-space surface parking lot.
   Although the building’s use is in line with the site’s zoning, it was not within the recently revised height allowances in Princeton Borough. The building’s proposed height — just over 41 feet — exceeds the height limit by 2 feet.
   Both Planning Board members and professionals did not see the building’s proposed height as a barrier for approval Thursday evening.
   "All in all, there weren’t many areas of dispute," Borough Engineer Carl Peters said at the board’s meeting.
   University Architect Jon Hlafter described the height difference as "modest" on Thursday.
   After several board members raised questions about the loss of parking, Mr. Hlafter assured the board there is a surplus of parking spaces.
   Although some parking is lost, no new traffic is expected to affect the borough, university representatives said.
   Frederick Fisher, the university’s California-based architect, said the project would be easily integrated into the site’s surrounding architecture. Comparing the building’s use of glass to that of the recently renovated Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Mr. Fisher said the site is meant to give a "deep, ethereal quality."
   The building, representatives from both the university and the board’s professional staff said, will be connected by pathways to neighboring sites — an example of the university’s intent to create a walking campus.
   As a result of the site’s development, more than a dozen trees will be cut down. The university is creating a landscaping plan, however, which will include a new courtyard that could compensate for the lost trees.
   An additional requirement of the project’s approval was the adoption of an affordable-housing growth share plan by the Borough Council. Because of regulations by the state Council on Affordable Housing, municipalities must provide more affordable housing as municipalities expand.
   To address these concerns, the Borough Council approved a resolution in September that designates five housing units on Leigh Avenue as affordable.
   Also at its meeting Thursday, the Planning Board unanimously approved an ordinance revising the uses of the current University Medical Center at Princeton site in the township.
   The ordinance, which creates a retail and office zone, responds to the medical center’s anticipated move to Plainsboro in about 2010.
   The hospital’s buildings are primarily within the borough, but the approximately 740-space parking garage on Henry Avenue and its surgical center on Witherspoon Street are in the township. The ordinance also establishes an overlay zone that creates a garage use that would allow future developers to utilize the parking facility.
   The board reviewed the township’s ordinance with little comment.
   "They are two ordinances that had public comment … more than any I can remember," township Mayor Phyllis Marchand said of both the borough and township hospital rezoning. "I think a lot of institutions can learn from this," she added.
   The zoning ordinance is slated for a public hearing before the Township Committee in December.