By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO — Construction on a new state-of-the-art storage facility for works of art should commence sometime in the next year according to Princeton’s James Forrestal Campus officials who presented concept plans of the structure to the Plainsboro Planning Board on Tuesday.
The 30,000-square-foot, one-story structure would be equipped with high-tech climate controls, and would be used to alleviate a problem stemming from a lack of modern storage for university artwork on the Princeton campus, according to David Knights, the director of marketing for the Princeton’s James Forrestal Campus.
”It is very exciting, and provides storage with advanced humidity and temperature controls critical to the storage of art,” said Mr. Knights. “It will have every bell and whistle.”
The structure would have a low-impact on traffic in the area, with only about nine employees, and would include space for Princeton University art students. Those students could travel in a group to the Plainsboro property and view a specific artwork that was pertinent to their class.
That’s much better than the current practice, according to Mr. Knights, who said the university currently has to lug the art piece around campus, which puts valuable art in danger of damage from the elements.
”Right now, it is impossible to get some of the pieces into the museum or classroom without exposing it,” said Mr. Knights. “If a teacher is teaching something on Cezanne, and it happens to be here, instead of lugging it there, here will be space to have it ready.”
Plainsboro officials said they were pleased with the low-impact use of the facility, which will likely have a low impact on the environment as well.
”They plan to reuse the containers used for the artwork, which are very expensive,” said Planning Board member Patricia Hullfish.
Plainsboro Mayor Peter Cantu said he supported the concept, but did have some small concerns over what some of the Forrestal properties were being used for, versus what the township was told the use would be during planning proposals.
”It raises some sensitivities about what Plainsboro bought into,” said Mayor Cantu of the planned and actual uses of some of the property. “We seem to be doing a lot of high-end warehousing in Princeton Forrestal.”
It was planned for office-research use, Mayor Cantu said.
Planning Board member Tom Hall said the structure was typical of what one would expect as something needed by a university like Princeton.
”It has this large museum, and all these materials, and they have to have a place to store them,” said Mr. Hall. “It seems like an OK use of the land. It is unobtrusive and there’s not a lot of traffic associated with it.”
Princeton officials said planning for the new structure should move ahead later this year when the site plan should come before the Planning Board.
