Williamson Hall overlooking the Princeton campus of Westminster Choir College.

At a packed meeting of Princeton’s Historic Preservation Commission last week, a group of students, alumni, and friends of Westminster Choir College of Rider University asked that the Westminster campus on Walnut Avenue be registered as a historic district. The request is part of an effort to keep the music school’s operations in Princeton, instead of relocating to Rider’s Lawrenceville location, a move the financially strapped University is considering.

But an attorney for Rider, which has owned the 85-year-old Westminster since 1992, said such a designation would not affect the University’s plan on how to proceed. “We’re here to listen. We appreciate the passion that surrounds Westminster Choir College and its importance to the community, alumni, and students,” said counsel Mark Solomon. “I would point out that this has no relation to the business decision Rider has to make. The two are separate issues.”

The University has indicated it expects to make a decision next month. The sale is being considered as a way to avoid a projected $13.1 million deficit by 2019.

Constance Fee, president of Westminster’s Alumni Council, spoke on behalf of the Coalition to Save Westminster Choir College in Princeton. She told the panel that with the help of consultants, the group plans to submit an official proposal in coming weeks. “We believe their findings will document what we know to be true, that the Westminster campus possesses significant historical value and represents an outstanding aspect of American, and particularly of Princeton, history and culture,” she said. “We believe that this site will be shown to meet three of the four criteria for such a designation: for social history, for association with significant persons, and for architecture.”

The famed Westminster Symphonic Choir has performed across the globe with major orchestras and conductors, some of whom, like the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin, are alumni of the school. Ms. Fee told the Commission that the original buildings on the campus were designed in 1934 by Sherley Warner Morgan, a professor emeritus of architecture and director emeritus of Princeton University’s School of Architecture.

The Westminster campus is not identified in Princeton’s master plan as a historic site. Julie Capozzoli, who chairs the Historic Preservation Commission, went over the procedure for designating a historic district, emphasizing that the process takes time and significant review.

The Coalition to Save Westminster has attracted significant media attention since Rider president Gregory Dell’Omo informed the school community in early December that selling the campus was under consideration. There have been recent television appearances on morning news programs, most recently on Philadelphia’s Fox 29 and New York’s Fox 5. A Facebook page dedicated to the cause lists nearly 3,000 members.