PRINCETON: Speer Library replacement plan debated

By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
   A Princeton Theological Seminary plan to raze the Robert E. Speer Library and replace it with a modern facility remains a source of controversy in Princeton Borough where a historic preservation review of the project was conducted Wednesday.
   Speer Library, which was built in 1957, no longer fulfills the seminary’s needs or the needs of its world-class collection of works and requires replacement, according school officials.
   However, Mercer Hill Historic District residents and others continue to take the position Speer Library is historically and architecturally significant and should be spared from a demolition that would the first since the district was created in 1985.
   Seminary officials speaking Wednesday focused on some outstanding questions posed by Princeton Borough Historic Preservation Review Committee members and the school’s evolving plans for features of the new library.
   A preliminary plan to build a 500,000-cubic-foot book storage facility on Stockton Street was of particular concern to residents living in the district and some committee members.
   ”It’s a Wal-Mart on steroids,” said Rob Robertson, a nearby resident, of the new library and the storage facility.
   The school has around 500,000 volumes.
   The storage facility would hold up to 2 million volumes, a figure seminary officials linked to a recognition that other theological institutions in the process of shrinking or closing will need somewhere to store works.
   But that size has residents concerned about plans that may emerge after space at the structure is exhausted, according to Mr. Robertson, who said the seminary had not released the contents of a master plan document for the institution campus.
   Residents also questioned the need to build the storage facility on the Stockton Street site.
   They pointed to Princeton University and other institutions that have built remote storage facilities for seldom-used works and the fact seminary officials said the school had actively considered such a facility as recently as a few years ago.
   ”I am not sure they really have a solid argument as to why they have to have it onsite,” Mr. Robertson said.
   Despite the position of some in the borough, it seems the school is bent on demolishing the library, according to Alexander Street resident Tom Chapman, who attended Wednesday’s meeting.
   It seems “the seminary thinks it has no option but to knock it down,” Mr. Chapman said.
   The seminary’s plans still require further review from the Princeton Borough Historic Preservation Review Committee and more scrutiny at the Princeton Regional Planning Board, which already has received one presentation from the school.