Township residents discuss future of nearby school site

The site is located near the intersection of Witherspoon Street and Valley Road.

Princeton Future, a group of joint Township and Borough volunteers, is discussing the development of both the site and the surrounding Witherspoon Street corridor.

The Board of Education, however, owns the deed to the land and will make the final decision on its development.

“Everyone has been talking about this for a while now. We’re waiting to see what ideas percolate over the next couple of months, and then we’ll see,” Lewis Goldstein, the assistant superintendent for human resources at Princeton Regional Schools, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.

There are currently four main ideas for the use of the site, the most strongly supported of which is turning it into a community space.

Richard Woodbridge ’65, a resident of the Township and a graduate of the Valley Road School, is a strong advocate of developing a community space.

Woodbridge is also a founding board member of the Princeton Community Television station and an appointed member of TV 30.

“The idea came about as a realization that the people who were approaching us to be possible co-tenants in the space were from various parts of the community, and we began to realize that effectively what we had on our hands was best characterized as a community center. Princeton does not have a traditional community center as such,” he said.

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Woodbridge said he was confident that the funding for the project could be found.

“This building has been part of the community for almost 100 years. There are probably thousands of graduates still in the area. If we tapped into that, we could go a long way to preserving the building and maybe improving it. It is the most desirable and obvious place for a community center due to its location,” he said.

J. Robert Hillier, a local developer and real estate consultant, said he approves of the community center proposition.

“The priority is meeting the needs of the community, especially in the area of nonprofits,” he said. “The space will reinforce and support the nonprofit organizations, school, pool and municipality activities already happening there, with even more community activities being present. It will provide a new, vibrant neighborhood focus.”

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Hillier said he feels it’s also important to preserve the outside of the building during the construction process for its historical value and believes that it would not greatly increase the cost of renovations.

“It is very feasible to save the facade of the building. It would be about a 2 percent increase in cost due to logistics and impact on construction process,” he said.

Another proposed plan called for the local YWCA to move into the site.

The final plan proposed the complete demolition and reconstruction of the building in order to consolidate and house emergency and first aid services in the community. This proposition also includes the construction of a nearby building for Corner House and an expansion of the firehouse.

Traffic, however, is a genuine concern for the area and is already difficult during peak hours. Residents are anxious about how a consolidation of the emergency services to the area would affect traffic.

“It is a legitimate issue,” said Woodbridge. “This would have a large effect because it is already near the existing school. There is a lot of foot traffic in the area and dispatching ambulances and fire trucks could have a huge impact.”

The current tenants are waiting to hear the final plans from the Board of Education.