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A new face for a new era

Princeton Shopping Center gets a makeover

Katie Wagner
   Deeann Lemmerling, co-owner of Bon Apetit, in the Princeton Shopping Center, worked hard to improve the interior of her store during the past few years.
   She repainted the interior, expanded the building to create café seating and hired local artists to paint reproductions of Toulouse Lautrec and other famous artists’ works to adorn the café’s walls.
   Now an extensive exterior renovation at the shopping center seems to validate the upgrades Ms. Lemmerling and other owners of the center’s businesses have given to their individual stores.
   "We kind of feel now like now the outside of the shopping center is going to match the inside of the stores," Ms. Lemmerling said.
   Since April, workers have been preparing the over 50-year-old shopping center for a facelift, which will include new signs for every tenant, walkway awnings, more lighting and a transformation of the courtyard into a "more sophisticated" Wi-Fi-equipped park with tables, benches and new landscaping.
   "We’re in the beginning stages of it," said Chris Hanington, general manager of the shopping center. "We’ve been anxious to do this facelift for years now and it finally got approval in April."
   The 25-acre shopping center contains six buildings housing approximately 50 businesses surrounding two acres of lawns with trees, flowers and other plantings.
   The interior greenery, a signature feature of the center, was designed by its architects, Ketchum, Gina & Sharpe, to create the feeling of a traditional town center in what would otherwise be a very contemporary shopping complex.
   "It was interesting, because at that time (1956) some of the first shopping centers were being built," said Allan W. Kehrt, a KSS architects partner. "It had a modernist kind of international style when it was first built, which as an architect, I can appreciate."
   The signage of individual businesses is one of the most significant aspects of the renovation.
   According to a news release from Rosen Johnson Architects, the firm responsible for the upgrade design, signs will be taller than the ones currently located above each store’s front entrance. The signs will have illuminated sign bands to conceal rooftop equipment, which is now visible from the parking lots or courtyard. The color scheme of the signs will be changing from green and white to a variety of earth tones.
   The entrance portal on the North Harrison Street side will receive a vaulted skylight that will illuminate the currently dark passageway from the entrance to the central lawn and a sign identifying the shopping center.
   The new awnings will shelter perimeter walkways. Breezeways being rebuilt between buildings will include faceted fabric roofs. New pathways will run across the courtyard and the new landscaping will define smaller courtyards leading to a sweep of new plantings on the central lawn.
   "What they’re going to do — this will be gorgeous," said Joanne Nini, an employee of One-of-a-kind Consignment Gallery, one of the shopping center’s stores. "I think it’s going to bring a lot of high-end people. And Dunkin’ Donuts is coming. As much as it’s bad for me, because I love doughnuts, I think it will bring a lot of people."
   She added, Zen Palate, a high-end vegetarian restaurant that opened at the center in April, will also be a big draw.
   This is certainly not the first time the shopping center has undergone such a change. "We’ve had several major renovations, including one in 1987. The last one occurred in 1993, when McCaffrey’s moved in," Ms. Cunningham said.
   "I’m so excited," Ms. Lemmerling said of the current renovation. "It was time. It’s a really nice shopping center. It’s going to be nice to have it look a little more updated."
   While the new Princeton Public Library building was being constructed, the library took over 12,700 square feet of first floor space and 7,600 square feet of basement at the center between April 2001 and March 2004. Its presence was widely appreciated by the center’s business owners, who said the library brought more customers to their stores. There have also been quite a few changes to the center’s roster of retailers. Ms. Lemmerling remembers when the center had two grocery stores, an Acme and A&P, as well as a Bamberger’s.
   "It was so nice to have a department store there. It was kind of a disappointment when they left," she said.
   While tenants and shoppers have been sad to see some former tenants leave, they appreciate several aspects of the center.
   "I think something we all should be proud of is there still are a lot of privately owned stores," Ms. Lemmerling said. "Now, you see a Gap everywhere. We have almost the opposite of that, which is very, very rare. Even if we do have chains, they’re small chains, like McCaffrey’s."
   "I shop at McCaffrey’s because it’s close to home," said Marina Tuttle, a Princeton resident who frequents the center. "It’s a nice thing to have in Princeton. I like how it is close to other things like the pet shop. I like the trees. It’s nice to have trees in a shopping center."