By Anne Levin

At a meeting of Princeton Council Monday evening, members of the governing body were not pleased to find out that the developers of the Graduate Hotel at 20 Nassau Street had requested a change in plans to keep Chambers Street open to two-way traffic during the two-year construction project.

As explained by the developers’ attorney Christopher DeGrezia and construction manager David Chipman, the proposed change comes after a closer look at how wide the road needs to be to allow for barriers and scaffolding. The travel lane could be only 15 feet wide, which they said is not enough for two-way traffic. They asked Council to permit one-way traffic for the portion of Chambers Street that is closest to Nassau Street, while the remainder in front of 16, 22, and 32 Chambers, plus the parking garage, would remain two-way.

Councilmember Eve Niedergang called the request disturbing. “So the assurances we’ve given the business community have gone down the toilet,” she said. “You’re saying you made a mistake and now you’re asking us to go back on the commitment we have made.”

Councilmember Mia Sacks commented that this is not a good start to the construction process. Councilmember Michelle Pirone Lambros said, “We thought there was already a promise that this would remain two-way. I don’t see how two-way was ever on the table.”

The hotel representatives said their priorities are safety for the public and construction workers, and admitted a mistake had been made. In recent meetings with public safety officials, concerns were raised about the two-way traffic, DeGrezia said, and the developers were asked to take a closer look. “We have come up with what we think is the safest approach,” he said. “We want to be safe and create as little disturbance to downtown as possible.”

Some members of the business community offered their opposition to the one-way configuration. Lori Rabon, vice president of Palmer Square Management and general manager of The Nassau Inn, said the idea “would amount to total traffic gridlock in the central business district,” adding she has always been in favor of the hotel. “Unfortunately, we

were not given any warning or consideration of a phone call” regarding the issue.

Jessica Durrie of Small World Coffee, which has stores on Witherspoon and Nassau streets commented in a letter read aloud that businesses are still recovering from the pandemic, and making traffic one-way on a portion of Chambers Street will make things worse. She recommended that Council consider an idea originally posed by Andrew Siegel of Hamilton Jewelers, suggesting that work on the Witherspoon Street Improvement Project be paused —  restoring on-street parking and two-way traffic there — until the Graduate Hotel is completed.

Mayor Mark Freda and Council agreed to have municipal staff meet with the Graduate Hotel construction team to go over details “to make sure the request is a need-to-have versus a nice-to-have,” hopefully revisiting the issue at the next meeting of Council or soon thereafter.

The meeting also included the annual update by Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber, who commented on various issues including how the University has handled the pandemic. Monday was the first day on campus without a mask mandate.

The University submitted a 27-page report, which is on princetonnj.gov, to go along with Eisgruber’s remarks. In addition to the pandemic, he also spoke about the expansion of the undergraduate student body, the admittance of students from different kinds of backgrounds than in the past, the doubling in size of the transfer program, and commitments to diversity and equality.

The town’s Financial Officer Sandy Webb gave a report on the new budget, projecting an increase in taxes of 2.45 percent, or $97 a year for a house of average value in Princeton, $840,000.

The next meeting of Council is Monday, March 28 at 7 p.m., to be followed the next evening by a special meeting on the issue of cannabis retail  in Princeton.