PDS Receives Backing to Go Ahead With Campus Renovation, Building Expansion

Matthew Hersh

The Princeton Day School received the go-ahead from the Princeton Regional Planning Board Thursday night to reconstruct and expand several of its campus facilities.

The unanimous approval allows the 900-student, junior kindergarten-through-12 school to embark on a four-phased construction project, ultimately resulting in a net campus increase of 63,507 square feet. The proposed construction would cap student enrollment at about 940, school officials said, and would call for about 2.5 affordable housing units, as mandated under the new proposed Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) regulations. Those regulations will take effect on December 20.

The first phase of construction, slated to begin next year, will include the expansion of the school's library, fine arts areas, performing arts areas, several classrooms, and the lower school cafeteria, totalling 48,533 square feet. Many of the school's facilities have not seen improvement since the original campus was built in the early 1960s.

Phase two will be the expansion of the gymnasium by 6,883 feet; phase three will increase the school's art gallery space by 1,571; and phase four will develop the office of admission's space by 6,520 square feet.

PDS could not set a definitive timetable for phases two through four as the school has not yet completed the capital campaign that would finance the entire project.

One improvement, however, would help relieve some traffic congestion at peak times along the Great Road. Grace Ann Court, currently a one-way thoroughfare connecting the upper and lower schools, would permit two-way traffic under the plan, thus precluding the need for cars to use the Great Road as a means of travelling from one part of the campus to another, Township Engineer Robert Kiser said. The plan would also provide for increased bike and pedestrian paths, Mr. Kiser added.

Current traffic circumstances around the school and the effects of the approved expansion have, under county regulations, required a traffic signal at the main school entrance off the Great Road, said Lee Solow, planner for the planning board. A traffic consultant has recommended implementing coordination with adjacent traffic signals and installing a left-turn pocket at Coventry Farm.

PDS Head of School Judith Fox said she would like to see a traffic light in place by next December.

While the proposal received unanimous planning board approval, William Wolfe, chairman of the Site Plan Review Advisory Board to the planning board (SPRAB), said he was generally "underwhelmed" with the overall improvements. He said that while he and the other members of SPRAB "liked" the look of the new facilities, the proposed campus was not "well-suited" for a high volume of drop-off.

"[SPRAB] didn't want to get into a fresh design," Mr. Wolfe said. "That was something we felt they should get into."

Since 2003, however, PDS has participated in a program managed by the Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association that encourages and "matches" students and parents for car-pooling.