AvalonBay Receives Zoning Approval

Princeton Borough Council has unanimously approved the zoning changes requested by AvalonBay Communities, Inc., the company that plans to build 280 apartments at the hospital site on Witherspoon Street.

AvalonBay may install a sign and have on-site childcare, redraw an internal lot line, permit arts and crafts studios and install certain architectural details in the building setback.

AvalonBay is under contract to University Medical Center of Princeton property and plans to demolish the seven-story, 500,000-square foot building and build rental apartments. 

The hospital is relocating to Plainsboro this month.

Most members of Borough Council agreed that Avalon Bay’s proposal is not perfect, but mostly complies with zoning and the developer has pledged to work on design elements to improve public access, possibly lower building heights and amend design elements to reduce the appearance of building mass.

“This is not an opportunity, as some had hoped, to ‘do it over,’” Borough Mayor Yina Moore said. “But I think opportunities exist to enhance what has been proposed for the benefit of the community.”

Borough officials hope AvalonBay will not file a site plan before an agreement on the project’s design is reached. 

AvalonBay Senior Vice President Ronald Ladell promised officials they could trust the company.

“We could have filed the site plan months ago,” Ladell said. “We could have filed the site plan last week. We could file the site plan tomorrow. We’ll be back as many times as you want, as much time as it takes. Our pledge to you is if we get this process started tonight, we will continue to move along the process.”

But some residents remain concerned.

Joseph Weiss presented several scaled renderings, including one that shows the AvalonBay project will be roughly the size of Princeton University stadium and dwarfs the height of both the Princeton Public Library and the Residences at Palmer Square.

“This is a huge scale shift in two residential neighborhoods,” Weiss said. “You have to get your minds eye around this image- Princeton stadium in the middle of Witherspoon Street. I think this is what zoning is supposed to protect us from.”

Resident Alexi Assmus, a member of a group called Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods, sent overnight letters to each of the hospital’s 35 trustees on Tuesday.

 “We’re asking that the hospital trustees honor this plan and work with prospective buyer to honor the plan they agreed to in 2006,” Assmus said.

The group specifically wants to see more public open space, lower building heights, smaller project scale, LEED certification and mixed use at the site.

Borough officials said conversations between the neighbors, AvalonBay and hospital representatives can still continue.

Avalon Bay had originally asked for zoning changes that would allow them to build less than the 20 percent affordable units and a request for increased density- to 324 total units. They eventually withdrew both requests.