PRINCETON: First aid squad seeks approval to build new headquarters

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton First Aid & Rescue Squad will seek approval from the town to build a roughly 15,900-square-foot headquarters on Valley Road, as a more than decade-long goal of having a new home is within sight.
An application will be filed this week with the municipal zoning board, said PFARS President Mark Freda by phone Friday. He said he hopes the squad can have a hearing before the board in November and, if the approvals are granted then, PFARS can possibly break ground next April or May at the site of the former Princeton Township Public Works Department.
The project is expected to take 12 to 14 months to complete, he said.
Freda declined to say how much the squad has raised so far for the $7.8 million job.
“We’ve raised enough money that we could start construction,” he said. “We haven’t raised all the money we need yet.”
Some of the money is coming from the municipality. An agreement between PFARS and the town called for the squad to sell its real estate — two residential parcels on Clearview Avenue and the PFARS headquarters — to the municipality.
The town already has acquired the two Clearview properties — which PFARS originally had obtained thinking it would expand its North Harrison Street headquarters from its current footprint. But the roughly $950,000 for both parcels will be paid next year, also when the headquarters property will be appraised, Freda said.
For her part, Mayor Liz Lempert said this week that the town had “not yet” decided how to use the properties. In the past, the municipality has talked of them becoming affordable housing.
“But we’re not locked into any particular use for them at this point,” she said Monday.
She said one option is for the town to sell them and use the money for what she called “capital projects.”
PFARS, founded in 1939, has been operating out of a headquarters built in 1963. The building long ago became obsolete for an organization made up today of roughly 100 members, most of whom are volunteers.
As designed, the new building will allow PFFARS to have all 10 of its vehicles stored indoors, “protected as opposed to sitting outside,” Freda said.
“This is, obviously, very significant for the squad, it allows us to do a lot of things that we’re not able to do now,” Freda said of having a new building. “But we’ve, literally, been working on this project for fifteen years.”