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ing empty in West Windsor. There is going to be commercial happening on that site eventually as part of this plan. I believe its about 150,000-square-feet along Route 1 and around Quakerbridge Road.

WWP: Offices and a small amount of retail, correct?

HM: Yes, a small amount of retail, too.

WWP: But the whole site could not have been developed as commercial and retail?

HM: No, not the whole thing as such. I mean, the developer would have made argument that this development is commercial. They would need to put a lot of houses there to create customers for whatever retail they puts in. But that’s the crux of the matter—that we don’t want too much housing, because that puts pressure on everybody.

WWP: How difficult were the negotiations with Atlantic? I’m sure you probably wanted less warehouses. Did the developer want more than they ultimately got?

HM: Yeah the developer wanted a lot more, and we went back and forth for quite a while, and it’s anybody’s guess, right? I didn’t know what they were thinking. They didn’t know what I was thinking. At a certain point, we had to decide, “okay, I believe this is the best I can get, plus or minus delta.” And that’s when we settled.

My reasoning was that the property is about two miles from Route 295 and it’s right on Route 1. One of the strong conditions in our approval is that they have to have Route 1 access.

It makes sense that the majority of traffic would go to either to Route 1 or to 295. If you’re going south, it makes no sense to come in through town. I mean, truck drivers are not just driving around to annoy you. They have to go somewhere and time is money for them. They will just take a route that’s more direct than going through several towns.

If you put in Google that you are coming from a Newark airport site, it will tell you take Route 18 and go to Route 1 as the shortest and easiest way here. If you’re going to Philadelphia or Delaware it’s a no-brainer to take Route 295 and south.

So I still expect the majority of traffic would go that way. I can’t say that not a single truck will come in through West Windsor. Trucks come in through West Windsor now.

People are always saying Clarksville Road is going to be six lanes. I don’t see that happening in my lifetime or my kids lifetime. I just don’t see that happening.

WWP: Now that it’s been approved, what are some of the things that the town can do to mitigate the impacts from the site that may take place over time? All of those warehouses are not going to appear at once, so what are some of the things that the municipality can do in conjunction with other authorities?

HM: That’s a really good point you bring up. If you notice, we have only approved the first phase of the two-phase project—three warehouses. And the planning board conditions also stipulated what they need to do before they come in for phase two.

And it’s not as if simply because they’ve got preliminary approval for phase one, they can just come and start building. The police are working with the state DOT to better understand what controls they have. They are educating the traffic police as to what they can and can’t do with the truck traffic.

One of the planning conditions is that

See MARATHE, Page 10

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