Wing could be added to accommodate faster-than-expected enrollment growth
By: Bill Greenwood
MONROE The architect who designed a proposed 1,800-student high school says the board could add a wing to the building to accommodate faster-than-expected enrollment growth.
James Morton, of Design Ideas Group, of North Brunswick, said the proposed 35-acre high school site could accommodate an addition that could expand the building’s proposed capacity by as much as 900 students if needed. He said the district could add a three-story structure to the plans that would have classrooms on the second and third floors and would increase capacity at the high school from 1,800 students to anywhere from 2,200 to 2,700 students.
District officials say the addition is needed because the previously approved but yet-to-be-built high school will be able to accommodate only 1,800 students. The district is anticipating more than 2,000 high school students when it opens in the fall of 2011.
The district has yet to determine how much the new project will cost and how much more space will be needed.
Design Ideas Group, formerly known as MRM Architecture, is one of two firms being considered by the board to design a proposed expansion of the original plans and answer the cost question. The other, the Prisco Group, of Hopewell, designed the elementary school that will be built on Applegarth Road across from the Applegarth Middle School.
The board plans to vote Wednesday to award a contract to one of the firms to develop educational schematics and specifications. Calls to the Prisco Group were not returned by The Cranbury Press’ Thursday afternoon deadline.
Mr. Morton, who created the original plans for the high school, said there is space located behind a three-story "tower" structure in which the school’s classrooms will be housed. The district could build a one-, two- or three-story addition there, Mr. Morton said.
Mr. Morton said he would recommend that the district add a structure that would be directly behind and connected to the "tower." He said the structure should have classrooms on the third and second floors and nothing on the first floor. He said the first floor could be developed later if needed.
Any changes to the original plans would need to be approved by the state Department of Education and the state Department of Community Affairs, district Director of Facilities Jerry Tague said.
He said district administrators would need to meet with an architect to create educational specifications and schematics for the expanded project. Those specifications and schematics would need to be approved by the board and the Department of Education, after which the architect could create the final construction drawings and schematics. Those then would be sent to the state Department of Community Affairs for code review and approval.
If approved, the project will expand the proposed 365,000-square-foot, $82.9 million high school, slated to be built on a 35-acre parcel in Thompson Park. The school was approved by voters in December 2003.
A demographic report revised on Jan. 25, 2006, shows that the district will have 1,950 high school students during the 2009-2010 school year, two years before the high school is expected to open. District Business Administrator Wayne Holliday said June 14 that he expects there to be 2,150 high school students during the 2011-2012 school year.
The board wants to place a referendum for the expanded project on the ballot in December. To hold a December referendum, the board would need to approve a ballot question by September. The board also was hoping to have ownership of the Thompson Park parcel, which currently is protected by state Green Acres restrictions, by Wednesday so it could create a specific timeline.
The board will not acquire the property by Wednesday, because the state has yet to give final approval for a land swap between Middlesex County and the township and has asked the township to conduct additional archeological research on the site.
The swap 175 acres of open land owned by the township for 35 acres in Green Acres-protected Thompson Park was granted conditional approval in 2006 by the Statehouse Commission. Final approval must come from the state Department of Environmental Protection, which is reviewing the site’s historical significance. A survey conducted for the township by Richard Grubb and Associates, a Cranbury company, concluded that the historic Bethel Mission, an 18th-century community of Leni Lenape converted to Christianity by Presbyterian minister David Brainerd, was not located on the parcel but the DEP has ordered more extensive study.

