New firehouse proposed at commercial-office site
Construction needs approval of voters in Monroe fire district
BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

Monroe residents served by Fire District No. 2 will vote this month on the construction of a new firehouse.

A referendum on the firehouse will be included on the ballots for that district’s election on Feb. 18, Township Business Administrator Wayne Hamilton said.

The 1-acre parcel for the firehouse was conveyed to the township by developer Edgewood Properties on its approved 18.5-acre Applegarth Professional Center. The land was formally accepted by the Township Council Monday night.

“Essentially, this is now the continuing process of the township accepting the land, and in turn then sharing the land to construct a firehouse and shared EMS satellite location,” Hamilton said.

Though he was unsure of the fire district’s portion of the construction costs, Hamilton said the township’s portion will be about $1.5 million. The district’s portion will be less than the township’s, he said.

The professional center, which received township approval in June 2005, will be located at the southeast corner of Applegarth and Cranbury Half-Acre roads. It will include a trio of three-story medical office buildings, each 10,200 square feet, and a single four-story medical office building on the western half of the property.

The eastern half of the site will have 13,013 square feet of retail and pharmacy space, a 4,000-square-foot bank and two restaurants, totaling 11,400 square feet.

The firehouse would be located in the northwest corner of the site, along Cranbury Half-Acre Road.

The developer has also agreed to install a traffic signal at the intersection near the firehouse.

Planning Board member Joe Montanti said the pharmacy will likely be a CVS, and one of the medical offices will be occupied by the CentraState Healthcare network.

Possibly the most notable tenant, Montanti said, will be a dialysis center. The developer announced in June that the company would be Dialysis Center Inc. Montanti said the center would be beneficial to all the residents who currently must travel to Princeton, where the nearest dialysis center is located, up to three times a week.

“Even though Princeton isn’t that far, with the number of people we have in the township that are on dialysis, we’re really happy that Edgewood Properties was able to get a dialysis center for this particular project,” Montanti said.

As of June, the center did not have a tenant for either restaurant, but Ron Aulenbach, director of engineering for Edgewood Properties, has said the developer is looking for a family-style restaurant and a national chain sit-down establishment.

The property is zoned as a planned office commercial development zone (POCD), which does not allow for supermarkets or drive-thru, fast-food restaurants.

In December 2004, construction began on a new firehouse for Monroe’s District No. 3 on Centre Drive near its intersection with Applegarth Road.

Officials have said that the new facility, which would also serve as a satellite EMS facility, could enable firefighters to cut response time in half.

That firehouse, Hamilton said, should be completed in March or April.

Construction on the proposed firehouse for District No. 2, Hamilton said, could start later this year or early next year. But, he added, before the design process can even begin, the referendum must be approved.

“It depends on what the voters do,” Hamilton said.