Borough Council approves hiring landscape architect
By: Nick Norlen
The Princeton Borough Council has taken the first step toward providing what residents said is a much needed updating of Harrison Street Park.
With applause from observers on Tuesday, the council unanimously approved a professional services agreement with landscape architecture firm Edgewater Design for conceptual and schematic design services for the park.
The design contract will cost $40,000 and the project itself will cost an estimated $300,000, according to Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi. It is the first such expenditure on the park in about 40 years.
"When you walk through Harrison Street Park now, it kind of looks OK. It’s got some nice shade, and it’s got lots of nice lawn areas," said resident Clifford Zink. "If you look at the park in a little more depth, you’ll see that there really are a lot of problems."
After an environmental study was commissioned, several landscape architecture firms submitted design proposals.
Since then, the borough has worked with the park’s neighbors to select a firm to complete the design work.
During the meeting, Councilman Roger Martindell questioned whether the $40,000 contract would create plans that would produce a "destination park" or a "neighborhood park."
Councilman Andrew Koontz said the chosen firm, which was selected from proposals ranging to $150,000, "represents a decision by the neighborhood to maintain the park as a neighborhood park."
According to Mr. Bruschi, the approval of the design contract could help to defray future costs.
"One of the things that’s important about keeping the process moving is so that we can have plans where we can go out and get funding from other sources, so it’s not necessarily all on the borough’s dollar," he said. "When we have things ready to go, we qualify much easier for other grant funds."
Township officials said the design costs will be covered by the borough’s Open Space Trust Fund, which can be used for acquiring new open space or maintaining existing areas.
Councilwoman Wendy Benchley suggested commissioning a survey of the rest of the borough’s parks, saying, "We have really neglected our parks, and if we can just begin to work at them in a systematic way … we won’t have completely deteriorated, derelict parks another 20 years from now," she said.

