Jones Lang LaSalle
Route 1 Corridor seen as ripe for growth
Thursday, January 26, 2006
By ROBERT STERN
Staff Writer
If the people who came up with the unforgettable Energizer Bunny ad campaign had to devise a slogan for development along Route 1 in Central Jersey, it might be something like: It keeps growing and growing and growing.
Plans along Route 1 unveiled since last summer alone call for building a 269-bed hospital in Plainsboro and for a nearly 60 percent expansion of the 1.1 million-square-foot Quaker Bridge Mall in Lawrence.
Work on those proposed projects likely won't begin until 2007 at the earliest.
The mall expansion and new hospital, if approved, will ramp up an already significant growth spurt that's under way and includes additional retail, restaurant, hotel and office space along Route 1 in Mercer and lower Middlesex counties.
For the first time since 2001, large new speculative Class-A office buildings are sprouting up along this stretch of the busy highway - one in Plainsboro and two in West Windsor.
Plainsboro's fifth hotel, a 142-room Homewood Suites taking shape along southbound Route 1 near Mapleton Road, also is expected to open later in 2006.
Likewise, stores should begin opening this year in a new 209,000-square-foot Target-anchored shopping center in South Brunswick that's in the early stages of construction at Route 1 North just south of Route 522.
For already established but aging retail hubs further south on Route 1, evolution seems to be the name of the game.
The 31-year-old Mercer Mall in Lawrence is in the midst of a $25 million makeover that its Maryland-based owner, Federal Realty Investment Trust, began last year to modernize the 493,000-square-foot center.
Route 1's retail powerhouse - the 1.1 million-square-foot Nassau Park Pavilion shopping center in West Windsor - has just about finished the final phase of construction, which included the opening late last year of a Babies `R' Us and a West Elm furniture store.
West Windsor's 235,000-square-foot MarketFair mall has cleared land for a stand-alone P.F. Chang's China Bistro restaurant that's expected to open by the end of the year.
In Plainsboro, the owner of the mixed-use Princeton Forrestal Village plans to invest about $12 million this year in renovations and restaurant pad-site additions. The work is part of a shift in the property's retail focus from discount outlet shops to upscale stores.
Those and other changes are designed to enhance the Forrestal Village's appeal to the increasing higher-income residential population nearby.
"We're repositioning the balance of our retail . . . to upscale retail," said Fred Knapp, vice president of property and asset management for The Gale Co., Princeton Forrestal Village's Florham Park-based owner. "That's in recognition of the increase to the residential and office demographics over the last several years."
The residential population within a 3-mile radius of Princeton Forrestal Village has grown by 30 percent over the past 10 years and has an average household income of $125,000 per year, Knapp said.
The desire to attract more customers with deeper pockets also is driving the owners of the Quaker Bridge Mall - Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group and Kravco Simon Co. of King of Prussia, Pa. - to seek an expansion and overhaul of that 32-year-old facility.
They want to add about 650,000 square feet to the mall that would include two new high-end retail anchor stores.
Jonathan Epstein, an attorney for Quaker Bridge Mall, said its owners hope Lawrence will begin planning board hearings in the next two months that would set in motion the necessary land-use changes to accommodate that amount of new development on the site.
"If the municipality adopts the master plan amendment and rezones the mall sufficiently . . . we would anticipate that we would be in Lawrence Township with a site plan application later in 2006," Epstein said.
Although it's unknown how much of an expansion Lawrence will allow, the initial reaction to the idea from municipal leaders there has been positive.
"We believe the Route 1 Corridor is doing very well," Lawrence Township Manager Richard S. Krawczun said. "We view this area, particularly in the area of Quaker Bridge Mall and the Mercer Mall as a regional destination."
It's unclear how the proposal to expand the Quaker Bridge Mall will influence a tentative plan to establish a ritzy mixed-use complex on the 653-acre former Wyeth tract on the West Windsor side of Quakerbridge Road and Route 1 North.
Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which owns the Wyeth tract, has had preliminary discussions with West Windsor officials about its future.
"We envision it as a major gathering place combining luxury residences, a full-service hotel and high-end shopping," General Growth spokesman Jim Graham said in an interview this month. "Specifics are being worked out as we talk to our retailing partners. We hope to break ground in the next couple of years but probably not in 2006."
Graham said General Growth will press on with its plan but declined to speculate directly on whether a bigger, fancier Quaker Bridge Mall would undermine its success.
West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said traffic volume - a perennial concern for commuters and officials along the heavily traveled Route 1 - will help guide the amount of development his township would allow at the Wyeth site.
He noted that General Growth and West Windsor have reached a tentative agreement to limit the Wyeth site's development potential by setting a 21-percent cap on its allowable floor-to-area ratio - lower than the 30 percent existing zoning allows.
"Our major concern here is the traffic side of it," he said, expressing a similar worry about the added traffic burden that could result from a massive expansion of the neighboring Quaker Bridge Mall.
Municipal officials in Plainsboro and South Brunswick also have mentioned traffic as one key issue that will have to be considered before Princeton HealthCare System may build its proposed $350 million new hospital in Plainsboro.
Princeton HealthCare hopes to open the Plainsboro hospital in 2010 as the anchor of what it envisions as a 1.2-million-square-foot medical campus on part of the 160-acre FMC Corp. site at Route 1 North and Plainsboro Road.
"Hopefully, it's an additional catalyst to getting Route 1 widened as soon as possible," said Ron Schmalz, spokesman for South Brunswick, where most of Route 1 has just two lanes in each direction - narrower than its typical width to the south and north.
NOTE: Contact Robert Stern at rstern@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5731.
Route 1 Corridor seen as ripe for growth
Thursday, January 26, 2006
By ROBERT STERN
Staff Writer
If the people who came up with the unforgettable Energizer Bunny ad campaign had to devise a slogan for development along Route 1 in Central Jersey, it might be something like: It keeps growing and growing and growing.
Plans along Route 1 unveiled since last summer alone call for building a 269-bed hospital in Plainsboro and for a nearly 60 percent expansion of the 1.1 million-square-foot Quaker Bridge Mall in Lawrence.
Work on those proposed projects likely won't begin until 2007 at the earliest.
The mall expansion and new hospital, if approved, will ramp up an already significant growth spurt that's under way and includes additional retail, restaurant, hotel and office space along Route 1 in Mercer and lower Middlesex counties.
For the first time since 2001, large new speculative Class-A office buildings are sprouting up along this stretch of the busy highway - one in Plainsboro and two in West Windsor.
Plainsboro's fifth hotel, a 142-room Homewood Suites taking shape along southbound Route 1 near Mapleton Road, also is expected to open later in 2006.
Likewise, stores should begin opening this year in a new 209,000-square-foot Target-anchored shopping center in South Brunswick that's in the early stages of construction at Route 1 North just south of Route 522.
For already established but aging retail hubs further south on Route 1, evolution seems to be the name of the game.
The 31-year-old Mercer Mall in Lawrence is in the midst of a $25 million makeover that its Maryland-based owner, Federal Realty Investment Trust, began last year to modernize the 493,000-square-foot center.
Route 1's retail powerhouse - the 1.1 million-square-foot Nassau Park Pavilion shopping center in West Windsor - has just about finished the final phase of construction, which included the opening late last year of a Babies `R' Us and a West Elm furniture store.
West Windsor's 235,000-square-foot MarketFair mall has cleared land for a stand-alone P.F. Chang's China Bistro restaurant that's expected to open by the end of the year.
In Plainsboro, the owner of the mixed-use Princeton Forrestal Village plans to invest about $12 million this year in renovations and restaurant pad-site additions. The work is part of a shift in the property's retail focus from discount outlet shops to upscale stores.
Those and other changes are designed to enhance the Forrestal Village's appeal to the increasing higher-income residential population nearby.
"We're repositioning the balance of our retail . . . to upscale retail," said Fred Knapp, vice president of property and asset management for The Gale Co., Princeton Forrestal Village's Florham Park-based owner. "That's in recognition of the increase to the residential and office demographics over the last several years."
The residential population within a 3-mile radius of Princeton Forrestal Village has grown by 30 percent over the past 10 years and has an average household income of $125,000 per year, Knapp said.
The desire to attract more customers with deeper pockets also is driving the owners of the Quaker Bridge Mall - Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group and Kravco Simon Co. of King of Prussia, Pa. - to seek an expansion and overhaul of that 32-year-old facility.
They want to add about 650,000 square feet to the mall that would include two new high-end retail anchor stores.
Jonathan Epstein, an attorney for Quaker Bridge Mall, said its owners hope Lawrence will begin planning board hearings in the next two months that would set in motion the necessary land-use changes to accommodate that amount of new development on the site.
"If the municipality adopts the master plan amendment and rezones the mall sufficiently . . . we would anticipate that we would be in Lawrence Township with a site plan application later in 2006," Epstein said.
Although it's unknown how much of an expansion Lawrence will allow, the initial reaction to the idea from municipal leaders there has been positive.
"We believe the Route 1 Corridor is doing very well," Lawrence Township Manager Richard S. Krawczun said. "We view this area, particularly in the area of Quaker Bridge Mall and the Mercer Mall as a regional destination."
It's unclear how the proposal to expand the Quaker Bridge Mall will influence a tentative plan to establish a ritzy mixed-use complex on the 653-acre former Wyeth tract on the West Windsor side of Quakerbridge Road and Route 1 North.
Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which owns the Wyeth tract, has had preliminary discussions with West Windsor officials about its future.
"We envision it as a major gathering place combining luxury residences, a full-service hotel and high-end shopping," General Growth spokesman Jim Graham said in an interview this month. "Specifics are being worked out as we talk to our retailing partners. We hope to break ground in the next couple of years but probably not in 2006."
Graham said General Growth will press on with its plan but declined to speculate directly on whether a bigger, fancier Quaker Bridge Mall would undermine its success.
West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said traffic volume - a perennial concern for commuters and officials along the heavily traveled Route 1 - will help guide the amount of development his township would allow at the Wyeth site.
He noted that General Growth and West Windsor have reached a tentative agreement to limit the Wyeth site's development potential by setting a 21-percent cap on its allowable floor-to-area ratio - lower than the 30 percent existing zoning allows.
"Our major concern here is the traffic side of it," he said, expressing a similar worry about the added traffic burden that could result from a massive expansion of the neighboring Quaker Bridge Mall.
Municipal officials in Plainsboro and South Brunswick also have mentioned traffic as one key issue that will have to be considered before Princeton HealthCare System may build its proposed $350 million new hospital in Plainsboro.
Princeton HealthCare hopes to open the Plainsboro hospital in 2010 as the anchor of what it envisions as a 1.2-million-square-foot medical campus on part of the 160-acre FMC Corp. site at Route 1 North and Plainsboro Road.
"Hopefully, it's an additional catalyst to getting Route 1 widened as soon as possible," said Ron Schmalz, spokesman for South Brunswick, where most of Route 1 has just two lanes in each direction - narrower than its typical width to the south and north.
NOTE: Contact Robert Stern at rstern@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5731.
posted by Jones Lang LaSalle NJ News Blog at 11:06 AM
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