By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton University had no surprises in a planning document to help “guide” Nassau Hall as it looks to expand into West Windsor across Lake Carnegie, accommodate a growing student body and make “wise land-use decisions” in the coming years.
The 166-page-planning framework, released Tuesday, offers steps the university can take in the next 10 years within a “context of potential needs and developments over a thirty-year period.”
“Well, one of the things we’ve said in the plan and in the announcement we posted (Tuesday) morning is this is just suggesting locations where we could locate facilities,” university Vice President and Secretary Robert K. Durkee said by phone Tuesday. “In some cases, there is a preferred location, in other cases, there are multiple options. But that’s all this does.”
The university plans to add 500 more undergraduates. A new residential college is “proposed for a site south of Poe/Pardee fields that also could accommodate a second college, either in the near or longer term,” the planning document said. That will require moving the softball field and the outdoor tennis courts, expected to be relocated to the new campus in West Windsor.
The document also touched on the “potential” for a mixed-use area along Alexander Street, where the university owns land. Such an idea would need a zoning change by the Princeton Council.
“If rezoned for residential mixed use, the corridor could be developed in a manner that included housing of various kinds, along with some mix of retail, office, innovation partnership and convening space, potentially a hotel and other uses of interest to the community and the university,” the document read.
As an institution, Nassau Hall has taken a long view of its needs and potential growth. Durkee said the university started to acquire land south of the lake in the early 1920s, “with the idea that a day would come when they would be needed to help support the educational mission.”
“And we have come to a point where it’s time to really begin to make use of at least some of those lands in that way,” he said. “I think this is the moment where we will begin to develop those lands and do it in a way that supports multiple uses.”
He said the “proposal” for the Lake Campus calls for a mixed-use area of athletic, administrative and academic partnership space, parking, graduate student housing, along with other “amenities.”
In the planning document, the report said the Lake Campus has “more than two hundred and 10 acres east of Washington Road,” with more university-owned land across the street.
“The planning framework focuses all initial development on the east side of Washington Road, while reserving the lands west of Washington Road for future development,” the report said.
The timing of the document’s release comes with new leadership poised to take control of West Windsor. Mayor-elect Hemant Marathe is due to take office in January, to replace four-term mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh.
The university has talked of building a pedestrian bridge over Lake Carnegie to enable people to get to and from the new campus. But there is no timeline for development starting there or anywhere else.
“It’s a step in the process,” Durkee said, “but it’s too early to know when we would be beginning work on any of the projects.”
University representatives are scheduled to be on hand at the Princeton Council meeting, on Monday, for a presentation. For the town, the planning report was similar to what officials have heard the university say in the past.
“From what I’ve seen from the document,” Mayor Liz Lempert said Thursday, “there’s not a whole lot of surprises based on previous presentations.”
