By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO — The Plainsboro Village Center has won a 2008 Smart Growth award in the “New Town Center Development” category, officials from NJ Future announced last week.
Even in its current unfinished state, the independent jury judging the submissions for the New Town Center category selected Plainsboro’s centrally located, mixed-use development as the winner, after township officials submitted the center as an entry for this year’s contest.
The award will be officially bestowed upon the township at a June 5 award ceremony in Newark, according to a statement from NJ Future, but Plainsboro Township officials are already celebrating the announcement as a recognition of the planning and vision that has gone into the town center.
”We’re very happy about it. It’s a project we have been working on for a number of years,” said Mayor Peter Cantu. “It’s a comprehensive project that looked at the center of Plainsboro, and built what many developing communities lack — a center for the community.”
Entering the Smart Growth awards program had been considered earlier in the center’s relatively short lifetime, according to Township Administrator Robert Sheehan, who said the township government decided to wait until the center really took shape and progressed.
”I think the concept and plan were so sound,” said Mr. Sheehan of the center, which first saw a groundbreaking in August 2003. “It was never a pie in the sky type of plan, it was realistic and innovative.”
The next big event for the Plainsboro Village Center will be the official opening of the Village Green, which includes a water fountain and central public gathering space. That should open within the next 45 days, according to officials from the center’s development company, Sharbell Development Corp.
Much of the current retail space has been leased and occupied, with several restaurants and other businesses providing food and drink, in various forms, said Sharbell Senior Vice President Thomas Troy.
”We’re really starting to see a lot of after-work and evening traffic in the center,” Mr. Troy said.
In the overall plans for the Plainsboro Village Center, three structures remain to be built, which will bring more retail, office, and living space into the center, off of Scudders Mill Road.
All of the future buildings will be three stories, with retail on the ground floor and different mixes of office space or residential above. Currently the original four, large-scale buildings are mostly full, containing retail, offices and some living spaces, Mr. Troy said.
Sharbell officials said they hope to break ground on at least one of the remaining three buildings by the end of 2008, but with a lot of preoccupancy interest in the spaces in those final three buildings, ground could be broken on all three, Mr. Troy said.
Also down the road is the opening of the new Plainsboro Public Library, which is currently being constructed on a site in the heart of the Plainsboro Village Center.
Besides a doubling of shelf space, the new library will also provide additional areas for community groups, along with a myriad of other facilities.
”The real crown of the center is the library,” said Mr. Troy. “It will bring around-the-clock type of use. That will bode very well for retailers.”
The jury that selected the winners includes members of the NJ Future board of trustees, along with other professionals in development and planning, according to a NJ Future statement on the awards.
