PRINCETON: PFARS plans $7.25 million new building

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   The Princeton First Aid & Rescue Squad anticipates spending as much as $7.25 million to replace its nearly 50-year-old headquarters on North Harrison Street with a new building, the squad president said Monday.
   Peter Simon made clear that the current headquarters, constructed in 1963, would no longer do. He said the nonprofit organization has spent the past nine years looking at other options, including the former Valley Road School.
   Ultimately, he said, the nearly 100-member squad has decided that replacing the building is the right solution for a public safety agency that responded to more than 2,800 service calls last year.
   ”The need for this new facility is clear and it’s long overdue,” Mr. Simon told the Township Committee at its meeting Monday. “Our 1963 facility was never designed to handle the size or the scope of the organization that we are today.”
   As part of its plan, the squad bought two homes along Clearview Avenue next to the headquarters. Those residences, purchased in the past two years, will likely have to be demolished along with the current headquarters to accommodate the larger building. He said construction time is estimated to last between 14-16 months, so the squad will need to find temporary arrangements during that period.
   One critical element is the ability of the organization to raise the money necessary for a project of this scope. Mr. Simon said the organization has a fund-raising consultant who will assess what the resources and opportunities are. Of the estimated $7.25 million price tag, the squad has around $250,000, he said.
   The Township Committee voted Monday to change the zoning in that residential part of town to allow the squad to proceed with its plans. The zoning change was contained in an ordinance that will be looked at by the regional planning board before it comes back to the Township Committee for a final vote Nov.19.
   In his remarks to the Township Committee, Mr. Simon reviewed the history of the squad during the early 1960s, when volunteers responded to far fewer calls than today and used “Cadillacs as ambulances and a converted break truck as a rescue squad.”
   Mr. Simon cited a litany or problems with the building. The bays at the headquarters are narrow, such that vehicles need special side mirrors to fit inside. “During heavy rains, water leaks through the main electrical panel,” Mr. Simon said.