The Lawrence Township Planning Board expects to wrap up the public hearing and may take action on an application for a proposed 340,400-square-foot warehouse on a parcel on Princess Road when it meets Nov. 19 at the Municipal Building.
The meeting, which is scheduled to at 7 p.m. and will be held in the lower level conference room, is the third in a series of meetings to consider PSIP Metrix Princess Road LLC’s application for preliminary and final site plan approval to build the warehouse on a 31-acre lot at 10 Princess Road.
The applicant has completed its testimony, and it is expected that the public will be able to offer comments at the meeting.
Earlier meetings have drawn more than 70 attendees, many of whom live in The Gatherings age-restricted townhouse development and the Eagles Chase condominium development, down the street on Princess Road.
The residents, who oppose the proposed warehouse, have been joined in their opposition by Special Olympics New Jersey, whose headquarters is off Princess Road near the intersection at Princeton Pike.
Princess Road runs between Princeton Pike and Franklin Corner Road. The housing developments are off Princess Road, closer to the Franklin Corner Road intersection. The proposed warehouse would be located closer to the Princeton Pike intersection, next to an existing 110,103-square-foot warehouse.
The proposed warehouse will include 103 loading docks, divided between the front and rear of the building, and 64 trailer parking spaces. A variance is needed for the front-yard loading docks, which will face Princess Road.
The residents are concerned about additional truck traffic, but the applicant assured them that the driveway entrances and exits are designed to drive the tractor-trailer trucks toward the Princeton Pike intersection.
In earlier testimony, the applicant’s traffic engineer said the tractor-trailer trucks would deliver products to the warehouse and smaller trucks would likely pick up the products and distribute them to retailers.
The applicant’s planner testified that the nearest home is 1,800 feet away, and that Princess Road curves away from the proposed warehouse. Much of the existing woods will be preserved, and the building will be screened from view by landscaping.
According to the Community Impact Statement that was filed as part of the application process, the proposed warehouse would create 216 new jobs. And because it is not a residential development, there will be no impact on school enrollment.
The warehouse would be assessed at $23.3 million. Based on the 2018 tax rate, the Community Impact Statement estimates that it would generate $129,976 in municipal property taxes; $7,001 in municipal open space taxes; and $346,058 in school district property taxes. It did not list the amount of revenue that Mercer County would receive.
