Zoners asked to consider plan for medical building
BY TALI ISRAELI
Staff Writer

MARLBORO - Testimony began last week on an application to construct a two-story medical building on Route 520 near the intersection of Route 79.

Representatives of SFC Enterprises appeared before the Zoning Board of Adjustment on March 20 seeking approval to build a 40,000-square-foot, two-story medical building on a property that currently houses a two-story spa. The property is in an OPT-II zone in which the medical building is a permitted use.

The applicant is requesting relief from three Marlboro ordinances: having more than one principal use on a lot (the spa and the medical building), exceeding the permitted lot coverage and exceeding the permitted floor area ratio. There are several bulk variances requested as well.

The floor area ratio permitted in that zone is 0.2 percent, the applicant is proposing .28 percent.

Attorney Sal Alfieri, representing the applicant, noted that the project exceeds the required floor area ratio due to the basement proposed in the plans because the basement counts toward to the total square footage of the building. However, Alfieri said, the basement will not be used for office space.

Project architect Robert W. Adler said the applicant made sure the basement will never be used for office space by lowering the height of the ceiling. He said the basement will be a value enhancement for the tenants and will be used for storage and filing.

The applicant is proposing a high tech, high-end medical facility that will be used for testing, X-rays and outpatient surgery, Adler said. Although the building will be divided among several tenants, Adler said, there will not be as many tenants as there are in some other medical buildings.

The highest point of the building is 31 feet and the majority of the building is 28 feet tall. There will be four entrances to the building.

Adler testified that 15 percent of the building will be used for common areas such as waiting rooms, staircases and elevators and 85 percent of the building will be occupied by the tenants.

He added that 20 percent of that space will be used for treatment rooms which will be approximately 120 square feet. There will be approximately 50 treatment rooms and 50 employees in the building, Adler said.

According to the township ordinance, the parking requirement for a medical building is three spaces for every treatment room and one space for every employee in the building.

Those calculations would result in a total of 237 parking spaces; 201 spaces for the medical building, an additional 32 spaces for the spa facility, and four spaces for the storage space in the basement.

Alfieri said the plans for the building were revised in order to respond to several concerns made by the zoning board's engineer. The revised plans address storm water management issues by expanding the detention basin and reduce the lot coverage to bring it closer to the township requirement, Alfieri said.

Before the plans were changed, the lot coverage for the project was 68 percent where 50 percent is permitted. The revised proposal calls for 58 percent lot coverage.

Testimony for the application is scheduled to continue on June 5. At that meeting the applicant will address the board's concerns with various aspects of the project including the size of the building if the project complied with the township's ordinances; a more detailed look at the interior layout of the building including the size of the treatment rooms; the setback from a church on the adjacent property; and the need to spread out the handicapped parking spaces so there are several of those spaces at every entrance to the building.

Several board members also expressed a concern that the building, which they described as a beautiful design, is not able to be seen from Route 520.