Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)’s campus between Pennington-Rocky Hill Road and Titus Mill Road will be soon undergoing some changes for expansion to provide for more employees. BMS received site plan approval last week by the Hopewell Township planning for the construction of a 21,986 square foot addition to an existing building on the BMS Hopewell campus.
The initial presentation before the planning board occurred at the May 28th meeting and was preliminarily approved on the condition that the site plan include the proposed walkway between the parking deck and proposed building addition along with a revision to the site plan with revised lighting diagram. The walkway has been presented to the planning board in a separate application and was also preliminarily approved at the last planning board meeting.
The footprint for the addition to the northern side of Building 9, where there is existing lawn and sidewalk, would be approximately 14,320 and include a penthouse structure for mechanical equipment and would accommodate an estimated additional 58 employees. The improvements will also include new sidewalk connections the two building addition entrances In order to address stormwater, the applicant BMS proposed a rain garden / detention basin to catch additional stormwater flow.
At the May planning board meeting, planning board members asked BMS representatives many questions involving use, projected traffic increases, availability of adequate parking and lighting/safety issues, as there are no changes proposed to the parking areas.
Specifically, planning board member Paul Kiss asked about the the hours of the employees and the potential traffic impacts. The planning board was informed by one of the applicant’s professionals, Steve Oliver, Senior Director and Chief Noise and Air Quality Engineer for Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor, LLC, that the building would be used by researchers whose work hours are dominated by research projects but the estimated hours of usage could be anytime between 7am-9pm.
As for traffic, the professionals indicated that it is their experience that traffic is split between the two primary entrances and that they anticipate a general vibration through the site that will govern the way employees are entering and parking on the site.
