By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR — The United Jewish Federation received the go-ahead from the Planning Board on Wednesday night to turn an 82-acre tract off Clarksville Road into a sprawling 84,000-square-foot community center.
When complete, the Jewish Community Center will boast offices, a day camp, multiple athletic fields and facilities, a health and fitness center, 270 parking spaces for visitors and members, and all the other trappings of a full-service, non-denominational community facility.
The plan calls for a main 77,000-square-foot building located on the central area of the property, with a smaller 7,000-square-foot building and numerous athletic fields located to the rear.
There were also general-purpose fields and open space for use in future township events, according to plans shown Wednesday.
The major parking area will be in the front of the main, three-level building, which is screened from Clarksville Road by vegetation and trees occupying one of the many small pockets of wetlands on the site.
Township officials said they are pleased with the plans, and what the facility will provide to the community.
”We certainly welcome this in West Windsor,” said Planning Board Chairman Marvin Gardner. “We think they will make a positive impact in the community, with recreational, cultural, and educational activities for all residents, regardless of their religion.”
The Planning Board heard the presentation and granted approval following some minor conditions placed on the applicant, which demonstrated the excellent working relationship among federation and West Windsor’s planning officials, according to the legal counsel for the United Jewish Federation.
”It was a very good, collaborative process,” said Kevin J. Moore, who represented the applicant and ran the Planning Board presentation. “The township made requests and my clients went out of their way to accommodate those concerns,” he said.
Drew Staffenberg, the executive director of the United Jewish Federation’s Development Council, said he expects the project to move along in getting other county, state, and township approvals and permits over the next four to six months, and the federation hopes to break ground in the first half of 2008.
If that happens, Mr. Staffenberg said, it was his hope that the project will be complete by the fall of 2009.
”We want to get started by the late spring or early summer, and the project should take from around 14 to 16 months to complete,” Mr. Staffenberg said.
Mr. Gardner said he also expects the developers to move ahead quickly with the approvals and eventual construction.
”They want to move together as expeditiously as possible,” Mr. Gardner said. “They have a few hurdles but they are anxious to move forward.”
The project still needs to get Mercer County Planning Board approvals, stemming from the fact that Clarksville Road is a county road.
Some other approvals will be required through the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which will need to sign off on various parts of the project related to the site having several pockets of wetlands, and its proximity to a waterway, Duck Pond Run.
Some county environmental bodies also will have to sign off, according to Mr. Moore.
Funding for the project was secured in part through the sale of the group’s last campus, located off Parkway Avenue in Ewing Township, which the township purchased in 2006.
Other funding has come into the federation’s coffers through a vigorous fundraising campaign, according to Mr. Staffenberg.
”We have been doing well and we are about 70-percent there,” said Mr. Staffenberg, of the group’s fundraising goal. “All gifts are accepted and welcomed.”
Some of the minor concerns aired during the presentation had to do with sidewalk connections, and links to an apartment complex of more than 350 units planned for a parcel of land across Clarksville Road.
The federation is granting an easement to the township for portions of the property that overlap a planned greenbelt area, and eventually it will have to construct sidewalks on portions of the property planned for future development, once that development occurs.
None of the conditions or concerns about the site plan were major ones, according to Mr. Gardner.

