By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR — A crowd of 300 attended a redevelopment meeting that showcased views of what a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly Route 571 corridor could look like in the future, courtesy of West Windsor resident and InterCap Holdings CEO Steve Goldin.
”We have to start somewhere,” said Mr. Goldin, who owns 25 acres of property in the township’s 350-acre redevelopment zone, near the Princeton Junction train station. “This is where we want to start.”
Put together by consultants hired by InterCap Holdings, the presentation demonstrated how the closest thing West Windsor Township currently has to a downtown area could be transformed, from a hodgepodge of obsolete buildings, small shopping centers, and overhead wires into a new “Main Street” area.
Although not officially endorsed by the township, the plans could be used at a later date by the municipal government, after their own consultants review InterCap’s work, township officials have said.
Plans shown Saturday started with a realignment of Wallace Road, designed to accommodate structures that would partially block off an unsightly electrical transformer complex that greets motorists driving through the heart of the township.
The new, tall mixed-use buildings would provide a gateway area into West Windsor and give residents a “sense of place.”
”They would block out that view, which is so visually dominant today,” said Jim Constantine, of Looney Ricks Kiss Architects, a firm hired by InterCap holdings to design the plans.
The Windsor Plaza shopping center — currently home to the Acme supermarket — would be completely redone, with a focus on a modernized shopping center sited closer to Route 571, with multiple floors and a mix of merchants, including current tenants and West Windsor landmarks like the Bagel Hole and Aljon’s Pizza.
There was even a rendering that showed a reincarnation of the ice cream shop Lick-It, which was demolished to make way for a PNC Bank and a small park at the corner of Route 571 and Wallace Road.
The inclusion of Lick-It elicited a round of applause from the crowd, and Mr. Constantine jokingly said the proximity of the ice cream parlor would discourage people with children from moving into lofts above retail space, reducing the need for more schools.
Reduced building setbacks and the construction of buildings closer to Route 571 would also allow for the construction of larger parking areas in the rear of the buildings, reducing the numbers of curb cuts and safety issues, according to Paul Eng-Wong of Newark and New York’s Eng-Wong Taub & Associates.
One of the more ambitious plans called for the construction of smaller service roads on either side of Route 571, allowing shoppers to navigate around retail areas on either side of the roadway.
That plan would require more expense, because of the need for acquiring an additional 10 feet of space on either side of the current right-of-way, Mr. Eng-Wong said.
Residents who have now experienced over a year’s worth of planning, meetings, and occasional controversy over redevelopment plans for a 350-acre area around the Princeton Junction train station questioned Mr. Goldin and his staff over portions of the plans shown Saturday.
When asked why Saturday’s plans did not seem to delve into planning for the rest of the redevelopment area or Mr. Goldin’s own 25-acre property off Washington Road, Mr. Goldin said that the majority of the community wanted a “Main Street” area, for starters.
”You will never get consensus on any issue in any town, especially West Windsor,” Mr. Goldin said.
Mr. Goldin and his consultants told the audience that the plans shown Saturday would require West Windsor to build an additional 50 affordable housing units, according to Council on Affordable Housing rules.
Resident Dave Siegel questioned the accuracy of some of the artists rendering which showed a high number of people walking around in the imaginary, redeveloped Route 571 area.
Mr. Siegel said he didn’t know if the “level of business your pictures are suggesting” was accurate.
There are plans in the works for additional meetings down the road, Mr. Goldin said, with those meetings eventually moving on to the other parts of the redevelopment project, including the train station area itself.
