PACKET EDITORIAL, Dec. 12
By: Packet Editorial
It was a long, long, long time coming but Montgomery Township finally sealed the deal last week to purchase the abandoned North Princeton Developmental Center site and turn it into Skillman Village, a real, honest-to-goodness town center.
Many of us have been involved over the years in difficult, sometimes contentious, negotiations over real estate. Buying a house or a piece of property can be a tedious task, what with all the inspections, searches, surveys, mortgage applications, legal documents and assorted terms and conditions of sale and purchase to hash out not to mention the back and forth over price. Sometimes these negotiations can drag on for weeks, or even months, before all issues are resolved.
But those kinds of transactions proceed at lightning speed compared to the snail’s pace of negotiations between Montgomery and New Jersey officials over the sale and purchase of the NPDC site. From the moment Gov. Christie Whitman declared the site surplus property in 1995 right up to last Thursday’s vote by the Montgomery Township Committee to purchase it for $5.95 million, this negotiating drama had more fits, starts and pit stops than an Indy 500 race.
Montgomery started thinking about buying all or part of the 256.5-acre NPDC site shortly after Gov. Whitman’s announcement. But it wasn’t until 1998, when the more than 100 buildings on the site were shuttered for good, that meaningful discussions began. None of the current members of Montgomery’s governing body was in office at that time; likewise, most of the state Treasury Department officials who participated in the early conversations over the NPDC’s disposition have long since retired or returned to the private sector.
Over the next eight years, the Township Committee shifted from Republican to Democratic control. The state went through five governors and a few more acting ones who served during brief, awkward transitions. Bureaucrats came and went through a revolving State House door. And every time Montgomery thought negotiations had taken a step forward, another pronouncement from the state set it two steps back.
At one point, Montgomery officials thought the two sides had an understanding over the value of an abandoned power plant on the site until Treasury officials changed their assessment. Then, the township was pretty sure an agreement had been reached over who would be responsible for cleaning up a neglected and possibly contaminated landfill until the state decided to reopen the issue.
On and on the haggling went, over everything from price to facilities to environmental remediation. And the state imposed one overarching condition: Montgomery could not turn around and sell the property to a private developer at a profit. It had to be put primarily to public use and purpose.
While the state was primarily concerned about not handing Montgomery a tax windfall, this happened to suit the township just fine. A fast-growing, sprawling suburb, Montgomery needed a place to call the center of town a civic, cultural, educational and social hub of activity. With the township schools located nearby and one, the Village Elementary School, on the NPDC site itself this was the logical spot for that hub to be situated.
It is to the township’s great credit that everyone who represented its interests in negotiations with the state, Democrat and Republican alike, kept this vision uppermost in mind. The NPDC site, properly developed, can be Montgomery’s crown jewel and even with the township taking on responsibility for cleaning it up (at a cost that will almost certainly be recouped as development proceeds), the purchase price of $5.95 million is a bargain. Montgomery residents and taxpayers have every reason to be pleased. And grateful to their elected officials for a negotiating job well done.

