By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
The next chapter in the lengthy history of a planned office park on Princeton Pike at Lewisville Road the former site of the Union Camp Corp. will be written next month when the Planning Board considers an application to amend the plan, which was approved in 2000.
Last week, attorney Christopher Tarr outlined the project’s history for the Planning Board in preparation for a public hearing on the proposed amendment. The public hearing is set for the board’s Dec. 17 meeting.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., which owns the property, wants permission to change the parking arrangements from three- and four-level parking garages to ground-level parking lots in phase 1 of the office park. The number of parking spaces would be reduced from 3,350 in the garages and a few “surface” parking spaces, to 2,328 in the parking lots.
Walking the Planning Board through the application’s history, Mr. Tarr told the board at its Nov. 19 meeting that RCN Corp., which originally owned the property, received preliminary approval for the site plan in February 2000. The approval called for a 1.5-million-square-foot office park on the 135-acre site, which would have been RCN’s corporate headquarters.
A few months later, the board gave final site plan approval for phase 1 of the office park to RCN, which was a cable and Internet service provider. The first phase consisted of five office buildings containing about 611,000 square feet, plus several parking garages, Mr. Tarr said.
But RCN ran into financial difficulties and made arrangements to share office space in phase 1 with Bristol Myers-Squibb Co. The pharmaceutical company subsequently acquired the property in 2001 after RCN folded. The development of the office park, however, has not gone forward.
”This site has long-term strategic value to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.,” Mr. Tarr said last week.
While the proposed amendment calls for replacing the multi-level parking garages with parking lots, the material for those parking lots would be porous pavement, he said. It is made up of large stones that allow water to drain through the surface and into the underground water aquifer.
Planning Board member Philip Duran said he was concerned about replacing seven acres of concrete the parking garages with 17 acres of porous pavement, and specifically where the oil from the parked cars would end up. He questioned whether the leaking oil would find its way into the neighbors’ wells.
Mr. Tarr replied that porous pavement has been used in Hopewell Township on its municipal parking lot. The state Department of Transportation also tested it on portions of I-195, he said, adding that “the experts have information on it.”
Paula Klockner and Judy Tredway, who both live on Lewisville Road, said they, too, were worried about oil leaking into the aquifer and they have shallow wells at their respective homes. Ms. Klockner said the aquifer would have to be monitored.
Ms. Tredway expressed concern that if the residents’ wells became contaminated from oil drippings, installing city water lines might not be easily done. If it required tapping into the water lines on the office park property, the lines would have to be extended through the berm that borders the property.
When Councilman Greg Puliti, who sits on the Planning Board, asked about the traffic impact, township traffic consultant James Kochenour said the applicant’s traffic engineer has updated information. The traffic numbers are pretty much the same as they were 10 years ago, he said.
Stonicker Drive resident Melissa Saunders, who is a professional planner and urban designer, said she was “deeply concerned” about the proposal to “unearth a mothballed plan from 2000” and expect it to be approved 12 years later.
The office park plan that is before the Planning Board is the type of plan that was “current to that era” when it was approved in 2000, but things have changed, Ms. Saunders said. In the planning profession, there has been a movement from single-user office parks to smart growth, transit-oriented developments, she said.
”This site has no potential for access to mass transit,” she said, as she urged the Planning Board to “seriously reconsider” why it is rushing to approve the amendment when there are other options to accommodate 1.5 million square feet of office space that seems to be needed by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
After the meeting, Fred Egenolf, the company’s director of community affairs, said Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is looking at its potential laboratory and office needs. It takes time to gain approval and then to construct the buildings, he said.
The company’s preference is to occupy space that it owns, instead of leasing space, Mr. Egenolf said. But no decision has been made about the Princeton Pike property and there are no immediate plans to build it, he said.

