By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton school district is “absolutely” interested in acquiring the Westminster Choir College campus as a future school site, officials said Tuesday., The announcement came on the same day that Rider University said it was looking to sell the Choir College and the more than 20-acre-campus that is contiguous to Princeton High School and John Witherspoon Middle School., “To say it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is not to overstate it,” school board president Patrick Sullivan said Tuesday at the Board of Education meeting. “It might be a once-in-a-century opportunity to acquire a piece of land for the public good, for our students, adjacent to our other two properties.”, In the short term, the district will take steps that include receiving proposals from consultants. Also, the board authorized the district administration to file a request with the town planning board “to be added to their next meeting agenda to discuss the need for a future school site and to designate the Westminster Choir College site as a future public school site in the Princeton master plan,” read, in part, a resolution that board members passed., Mayor Liz Lempert could not be reached for comment., For its part, district officials believed it was the right move to explore trying to acquire the land., “So we would be irresponsible not to consider what it would look like if we were able to acquire that property and what an expansion of facilities on that property would mean for the Princeton public schools,” Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said later in the meeting., Afterward, he and Sullivan said the land holds different options for the district, like expanding the high school, a preschool center or having a middle school for grades five to six — not to mention having property in case the district needs a new elementary school in the coming decades., The timing of the choir college becoming available also comes with the school officials working on an expected bond referendum to go before voters., The district, though, believes it can take on the cost of a land deal of that size. Sullivan said the district is in the midst of retiring $70 million in debt that will be paid off in the next five years., “So we have the ability, without causing financial stress on people, to borrow something on the order of that kind of money and not really stress anyone anymore than they are today,” Sullivan said., “We’re very interested, absolutely,” said Cochrane, in saying the school district and Rider would talk., Rider’s timetable is to reach a resolution on the future of Westminster in a year. “Can we execute in time before someone else buys it?” Sullivan asked rhetorically. “We’re going to try our best.”, This was the first public acknowledgement that the district was interested in the property, although it has been in touch with Rider about the land before this., “When we first commissioned the study into the feasibility of a one-campus model, we fielded inquiries on the property from multiple parties, including Princeton Public Schools. Since that time, and as the board announced on March 28, a one-campus model is no longer under consideration,” said Rider spokeswoman Kristine A. Brown on Wednesday. Rider had considered moving Westminster to its Lawrenceville campus, but instead will seek a buyer for the school and the campus, or an institution to acquire the music school and leave the campus for Rider to sell., “While we appreciate their interest and deeply value our place in the Princeton community, as President (Gregory) Dell’Omo informed the Rider community, over the next 12 months, our highest priority is to find an institution willing to acquire Westminster Choir College and keep it in Princeton,” said Brown., “Our goal is to save Westminster on the Princeton campus,” said Constance Fee, president of the Coalition to Save Westminster Choir College in Princeton, Inc., Princeton officials were not sure, however, if the district has the power to acquire the property through condemnation. But the New Jersey School Boards Association said Wednesday that districts have the power of eminent domain but added the process “is a lengthy and sometimes difficult one ….”, One school board member sought to frame the issue of the music school property in historical terms by recalling the foresightedness the country had in the 1800s to make the Louisiana Purchase., “This is an opportunity that, in this town, has not happened in a hundred years,” school board member Justin Doran said earlier in the meeting. “This is an opportunity for us to really seize the moment, to rally behind the community, the town and our educational leaders, to give them the growth that our student athletes, our student artists, our students, need to really expand their horizons.”
