By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO — Around 100 West Windsor residents and others were treated to a look into one potential future for the township’s 350-acre redevelopment area on Sunday, at the second in a series of public meetings held by West Windsor developer and InterCap Holdings CEO Steve Goldin.
Held at the Westin Hotel at Princeton Forrestal Village, the InterCap meeting included the unveiling of a partial plan for the redevelopment zone, on the western side of the Princeton Junction train station and the Northeast Corridor train tracks. InterCap is a major landowner in the redevelopment zone.
The scheme called for mixed-use development and a new street grid, in addition to seven parking decks that would more than double the parking spaces in the various station lots. Jim Constantine, director of planning and research for the Princeton office of Looney Ricks Kiss Architects presented it to the audience.
All told, Sunday’s development plan called for more than 700,000 square feet of office space, 58,000 square feet of retail, and 142 total affordable housing units.
There would be nearly 9,000 parking spaces, with around 6,000 of those fully dedicated for commuter automobiles. That number dwarfs the current commuter allotment of 3,500, with management split between NJ Transit, Amtrak, and the West Windsor Parking Authority.
Artist renderings of the plan were in sharp contrast to the current layout, a large expanse of surface parking lots.
The plan called for many of the decks to be surrounded by prominent office space or residential units, shielding the decks from view.
”You are no longer experiencing a sea of parking,” said Mr. Constantine.
Only the property of Mr. Goldin’s InterCap Holdings company was left out of the plan, although that segment is set to be revealed at a May meeting.
Also shown were traffic simulations that demonstrated one hypothetical future for the roadways around the train station. It portrayed what area roadways and intersections would experience in the year 2021, given a total build-out, under current zoning, in the redevelopment area.
Traffic consultant Tim Phelan called it “the doomsday scenario,” although stressing it was only one hypothetical future for the redevelopment area.
”Every intersection fails,” said Mr. Phelan, while pointing to one of four large projection screens showing the results of the InterCap-commissioned traffic study.
Displayed were maps showing the progressive growth of congestion at 28 of the township’s larger intersections.
The simulations even predicted heavy congestion at places like the Alexander Road and North Post Road intersection, where a new bridge and other traffic-calming features are currently being built.
Mr. Phelan noted that the West Windsor area and beyond had numerous high-capacity roadways running north and south, but similar roadways were lacking in the east and west directions.
That situation meant that the roadways in those directions, like Route 571 and Alexander Road, would only get worse in the future, barring significant traffic improvements and a change in what ends up being constructed on the properties in the redevelopment zone.
Mr. Phelan said that the current zoning called for mostly office space, and some retail.
”Those tend to be the highest generators of traffic,” he said.
Earlier in the meeting, attendees were shown several famous public places by speaker Gianni Longo and then polled, with the help of hand-held input devices.
Residents favored visuals of newly constructed mixed-use development in Cleveland and Atlanta, while visuals of a Washington, D.C. suburb failed to garner similar support.
Joseph Branca of Bank of America also made a presentation, which gave audience members a beginner’s course on tax increment financing. That type of financing has been heralded by some in the community as the best way for the township to finance public amenities, like resident parking facilities and traffic infrastructure improvements.
According to Mr. Branca, tax increment financing would allow the township to float bonds to fund those amenities.
The bonds would be paid off by the tax revenue generated by the increased property values of land in the redevelopment area, Mr. Branca said.
While more sparsely attended than the last public meeting, Mr. Goldin said he was pleased with Sunday’s meeting, and the overall progress in the planning process.
”I really sense that there is some positive momentum building,” said Mr. Goldin. “The tenor has changed since we have gotten involved in a more active way.”
InterCap officials plan to hold the next meeting sometime in May.
