By Lea Kahm
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The township Planning Board granted the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s request for an extension of its approval to construct an additional 445,000 square feet of office and laboratory space at its Route 206 facility Monday night.
The Planning Board agreed to extend BMS’ preliminary site plan approval for 15 years to 2026. The pharmaceutical company had been given 15 years to complete the expansion project when it was approved in 1996, but only one of the six planned buildings and the cafeteria addition have been built.
With its 15-year approval set to expire in September, BMS appeared before the Planning Board to ask for an extension this week. Attorney Christopher Tarr, who represented the company, said the expansion is part of a 1993 settlement agreement reached between BMS and Lawrence Township.
BMS sued Lawrence after it reduced the amount of square feet that the company could build, under the township’s 1989 zoning ordinance. The 1993 settlement agreement capped the size of the campus at 1.7 million square feet. To date, about 1.1 million square feet has been built, Mr. Tarr said.
”The request is to extend the time to let BMS build out what was previously approved. The bottom line is, it is still a beautiful facility and we would like to build out (the remaining square footage),” Mr. Tarr told the Planning Board.
Township planning consultant Philip Caton told the board that it could extend BMS’ approval, given the state of the economy and the scale of the project. The Municipal Land Use Law permits the board to consider those items in determining whether to grant an extension, he said.
The economy is depressed, and the project is quite large, Mr. Caton said. He suggested that it would be permissible to extend BMS’ approval, but for less than the 20 years that the pharmaceutical company had requested.
When the meeting was opened for public comment, Carson Road resident Bob Hunsicker said there were a number of issues addressed in the 1996 Planning Board resolution, such as noise, traffic, a buffer zone and the use of helicopters. The neighbors would like to keep those conditions in place, he said, adding that a shorter extension of time would be better.
Planning Board attorney David Roskos assured the neighbors that the conditions imposed by the Planning Board in the 1996 approval would not change. BMS is not asking for changes in its approval only for an extension of time to complete the project, he said.
Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun, who sits on the Planning Board, said “it is quite evident that it would be good for Lawrence Township to have a corporate resident like BMS. It has been a cooperative neighbor.”
Mr. Krawczun said a 20-year extension is “a bit excessive.” He suggested a 15-year extension, which would give BMS a total of 30 years to construct the buildings that were approved in 1996.
Mayor Greg Puliti, who also sits on the Planning Board, agreed with the suggestion for a 15-year extension. He said BMS has always been a good neighbor, and that he hoped the company “will be here for another 15 years.”
The Lawrence campus was built by E.R. Squibb & Sons in 1971. The company merged with Bristol Myers Co. in 1989 and formed Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

