Springdale Golf Club's Clubhouse Plans Revised and Passed by Planning Board

Matthew Hersh

Springdale Golf Club can now tee off on a new clubhouse, a putting green and chipping green in plans that were once touted as environmentally unacceptable and withdrawn from planning consideration.

Once calling for the removal of about 1,200 trees, the current proposal has reduced that number to 180 with a tree mitigation plan that would replant 181.

The approved plan allows the golf club to relocate the driving range and to construct a 12,410 square-foot clubhouse, a 4,978 square-foot cart-storage building, 115 parking spaces, a putting and chipping green.

The existing clubhouse on College Road West will remain standing and will be used by Princeton University.

An original development plan introduced to the Site Plan Review Advisory Board of the planning board (SPRAB) in August of last year outlined a project that included a 24,750 square-foot clubhouse, a driving range approximately 900 yards long, parking lots, and a limited-use access road reserved for emergency vehicles along Springdale Road.

However, when eyebrows began to rise in response to the number of trees slated for removal, the golf club withdrew its plan and worked with the Shade Tree Commission to re-align its plans. Original plans included the removal of 689 trees with trunk diameters of eight inches or more, a caliper that is now more stringently protected under Princeton's new Shade Tree regulations.

Only planning board member Marvin Reed objected to the new plans, which were approved 9-1. Mr. Reed worried the plans would cause more traffic along the already heavily congested Alexander Road and that if it did want to expand its facilities, Springdale should make some of its private throughways available to through traffic, namely by making the club accessible via Springdale Road.

"Adding to the [traffic] burden is compounding the problem on Alexander Road," Mr. Reed said, saying similar problems have occurred from McCarter Theater holding simultaneous performances at both McCarter and the Berlind Theaters, resulting in a greater traffic volume.

Mr. Reed also worried that if the University Medical Center at Princeton were to relocate to a location opposite Route 1, Alexander Road would end up being a "main access point from the center of Princeton to the medical center."

"That's a few more people we have adding to the burden at those intersections," he said.