• Lawrence Township, NJ
  • Educational Testing Service
  • Educational Testing Service
  • 355 Acres

Educational Testing Service

Educational Testing Service (ETS) is an independent non-profit organization for research, development, and delivery of testing for educational, professional, and personnel advancement purposes in over 180 countries, and employs more than 2,800 highly educated and skilled individuals worldwide. Since ETS acquired their Lawrence Township property in 1956, they have proceeded with careful planning to address the needs of the organization. Throughout the planning processes, ETS has considered sensitive environmental issues and continues to open the property to the general public for recreation use. The Lawrence Campus is situated within the developed portion of a 355 acre tract that contains maintained campus, wetlands, streams and ponds.

VNHA has been providing surveying, site/civil engineering, environmental consulting and permitting services to the Education Testing Service (ETS) for over 40 years.

In 1988 ETS received Preliminary Site Plan approval to construct four office buildings (Buildings 1, 2, 3, and 4) with parking and associated site infrastructure. This approval was followed by an application for Amended Preliminary/Final Site Plan Approval for Buildings 1, 2 and 3, associated parking and a detention basin in 1995, as well as an application for Preliminary/Final Site Plan Approval for a road, expansion of the Chauncey Conference Center, and associated landscaping in 1996. VNHA reviewed and determined potential regulatory approvals required and recommended course of action based on VNHA’s extensive knowledge of the site as well as Township and regulatory agency requirements. Permitting included submitting and obtaining an approval for a Flood Hazard Area Individual Permit with Hardship Exception, including assessment and detailed discussion of potential project impacts within a 300-foot riparian zone. In 2004, Preliminary/Final Site Plan approval for the phased construction of Buildings 4, 5, and 6, a parking structure, an additional surface parking area, and two stormwater detention basins was secured, and extended vesting was obtained for this approval.

Buildings 1 and 2, an internal loop road, surface parking, a detention basin and stormwater outfall to the Stony Brook, as well as all of the proposed improvements at the Chauncey Conference Center have been constructed. Construction of Building 3 and associated parking, access drives, and sidewalks is presently underway. In 2012, VNHA assisted ETS with the decommissioning and removal of an existing substation and the construction of a new relocated substation along Carter Road, including a stabilized turf access drive and emergency generator facility.

VNHA is currently providing site/civil engineering, surveying and environmental services for the replacement and relocation of the existing outdoor swimming pool which has been demolished in conjunction with the Building 3 project, with the construction of an indoor year-round recreational pool attached to the Chauncey Conference Center adjacent to the location of the demolished outdoor pool.

Services were previously provided for upgrade design of ETS’s 80,000 GPD Wastewater Treatment Plant, including the addition of primary and secondary clarification processes, five chemical addition systems, increased tertiary filtration capacity, flow equalization tankage and control weirs, plant air supply and emergency power system.


  • Surveying, Site/Civil Engineering Design, Stormwater Management, Environmental Consulting, Land Use Permitting, NJDEP Mitigation, LEED Consulting, Construction Phase Engineering, Construction Observation