Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert said on Oct. 4 that multiple hotel companies have approached her about wanting to open a new hotel in town and are “especially interested” in the Monument Hall municipal building location.
“I think everybody realizes there is capacity here for another hotel,” Lempert said in declining to identify the companies. “It’s an attractive place to do that.”
Princeton is home to two hotels, but the community loses revenue to tourists and visitors who stay at hotels on Route 1.
Lempert said that during the past two years she has received “multiple calls and visits” from hotel company representatives.
A hotel at the Monument Hall site would provide easy walking access to Nassau Street and to Princeton University, factors that Lempert said the companies have raised in their discussions with the town.
“This is an idea that has been percolating,” she said. “I think it’s an interesting idea, but there are a lot of moving parts and it may or may not come to fruition if not all the pieces align.”
If the town were ever to lease or sell the site, officials would need to find a home for the municipal employees who work in Monument Hall, a move that fits into a separate but related desire Lempert has.
She said she favors all government offices being located in a single municipal complex, a way to provide “better services” to the community and to allow employees to be “more efficient” with their time and to communicate and collaborate better between government departments.
“I’ve been open about that,” she said. “If we’re able to do it, it would be either on property the town already owns or in collaboration with the (Princeton Public Schools) or through some other means.”
She said such a move would have to “make financial sense to do it.”
One possibility is for the town to relocate those employees to the old Valley Road School building, which is owned by the Board of Education, or in any new school that opens there.
Lempert has expressed interest in Valley Road before, but school district officials have talked of demolishing that building and constructing a new school in its place.
“It has to be something that is in the best interest of the school district and works for the school district, too,” Lempert said, adding there are no “fixed plans.”
“Nothing has been proposed,” school board President Patrick Sullivan said on Oct. 4. “I think we would have to look at any proposal they have.”
In the meantime, the Princeton Council and the school board will look to meet jointly this fall to discuss shared services and other topics. A date for the meeting has not been scheduled.
