By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
With its colonial-style buildings, balcony adorned apartment units, green space and high-end stores and restaurants, Palmer Square has an acknowledged upscale reputation. But this year people with more modest means will be able to call this shopping, dining and recreational center home.
Under an agreement with the borough, four residential units owned by Palmer Square Management LLC are being leased at discounted rates established by the New Jersey Low and Moderate Income Housing Program.
The state sets maximum income requirements for these tenants, who are charged below-market rates to rent designated affordable housing units, which can be classified as low-income or moderate-income housing units.
Palmer Square Management owns the majority of buildings in Palmer Square, including 24 residential units and approximately 110,000 square feet of retail and 150,000 square feet of office space.
The Palmer Square affordable housing units, which are being marketed by the Somerset County Coalition on Affordable Housing, have all been classified as moderate-income housing, with maximum household salaries between $47,357 and $78,477, depending on the size of the family. The units are limited to two-person families, which restricts maximum household incomes to $54,122. They include three one-bedroom apartments and one efficiency or studio apartment. Lease agreements for two of the three one-bedrooms have already been signed, the contract on the third unit is being reviewed by a potential tenant and the efficiency apartment is still available for rent.
The one-bedroom apartments are each going for about $885 per month and the studio apartment $834 per month. Similar units in Palmer Square are being rented at their market rate, which is about $1,800 a month, according to David Newton, vice president of Palmer Square Management.
Over the years, the Palmer Square area has seen its share of famous tenants, including actress Brooke Shields and Nobel prize-winning author and professor Toni Morrison. Mr. Newton said he was told that Ms. Shields, who lived at 22 Chambers St. while she was studying at the university, requested a fence be built around her unit to conceal her windows from neighbors frequently looking into them.
He added that Palmer Square has also been home to some “real characters” that are not as widely known, with many of these former tenants having lived well beyond normal life expectancy.
”One thing I was amazed by was how old some of the people were that lived here,” said James Elkington, Palmer Square’s director of maintenance and engineering, who has been working in Palmer Square since 1976 when it was still owned by the university. “The only thing I could come up with was these people would have to walk up three or four flights of stairs every day, which kept them in good shape.
”We had one tenant, Olga von Wrangell, who died about a year ago who used to walk to Princeton Shopping Center every day,” he added. Ms. von Wrangell, a Russian baroness, died in 2006 at the age of 99. Her father had been chief administrator of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Palmer Square apartments have attracted a lot of Princeton graduate students, university employees and tenants of many nationalities, Mr. Newton said.
”It’s a small town with big city stories and it’s all because of the university, Mr. Newton said.
The availability of moderate-income units in Palmer Square is the result of a developer’s agreement with the Borough Council regarding Palmer Square’s luxury condominium development, Hulfish North, which is currently under construction.
Under the agreement, which was approved by the Borough Council in 2004, Palmer Square will need to offer 10 affordable housing units, an obligation that can be met by leasing existing units in Palmer Square owned by the company or new units included in the 100-unit Hulfish North development. The majority of Hulfish North units will be multi-family dwellings with approximately 20 townhouses and one or two flats also to be included. The residential units will be spread through seven buildings on 4.4 acres along Paul Robeson Place, beginning at Chambers Street and heading toward Witherspoon Street.
The Regional Planning Board of Princeton approved the project in June 2006. The Hulfish North project dates back to the 1980s when the Planning Board approved a proposal to construct a residential, retail an office complex on the site, with the retail components and a small percentage of the residential units included in the approved plan actually constructed. Zoning changes and additions to the plan required Palmer Square to seek more approvals for Hulfish North.
When the additional six affordable units Palmer Square has agreed to provide will be available has not yet been determined, said Victoria Zak, Palmer Square’s controller.
For more information about affordable housing in Palmer Square, contact Somerset County Coalition on Affordable Housing at 908-704-8901.
