{"id":1099,"date":"2014-09-23T19:03:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T23:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=1099"},"modified":"2014-09-23T20:50:52","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T00:50:52","slug":"brick-to-terminate-foodtown-redevelopment-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2014\/09\/brick-to-terminate-foodtown-redevelopment-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick to Terminate Foodtown Redevelopment Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The former Foodtown site off Route 70 in Brick. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

UPDATED 8:29 p.m. Tuesday<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brick officials announced minutes before a township council meeting was set to begin Tuesday night that they would back out of an agreement with M&M Realty Partners, the redeveloper of the former Foodtown site off Route 70.<\/p>\n

Mayor John Ducey said he has notified the redeveloper that \u201che is in default and if not cured, will be terminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe redeveloper signed an agreement with the township and wants to change the terms of that agreement to something that we find unacceptable, primarily more residential development,\u201d Ducey said. \u201cThis has brought any progress to a grinding halt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, a copy of a resolution that was approved at Tuesday night\u2019s meeting said M&M had failed to pay a required $100,000 deposit on the property and failed to meet a number of deadlines that were set by a previous township council for the property to be redeveloped.<\/p>\n

Joseph Baumann, the township\u2019s redevelopment attorney, said at the meeting Tuesday night that the township gave M&M the chance to walk away from the deal amicably, but they declined. The township and M&M are now in a \u201cperiod of dispute,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe certainly did give the developer an opportunity to go away without a dispute,\u201d said Baumann. \u201cWe didn\u2019t move to this step lightly, without deliberate thought and consideration, but that\u2019s where we are now. Rest assured, this was not our first choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the legal dispute, Baumann added, he has advised township officials against commenting on the situation as it unfolds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really designed entirely to protect the taxpayers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be careful about what we say.\u201d<\/p>\n

The relationship between the township and M&M apparently began to devolve after M&M asked the township council in Jan. 2013 for permission to change the redevelopment agreement to allow his company to build a 192 unit condominium complex, approximately 19,000 square feet of commercial space and 72 rental units over top the commercial space at the site. The council never agreed to change the plan, which currently only permits the construction of a full service hotel at the site. Some members of the governing body openly voiced disagreement with the plan to build condos after it was proposed.<\/p>\n

Ducey said M&M appeared unwilling to forgo its insistence in residential development at the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe council and I will not agree to any plan that is inconsistent with the current zoning of the Foodtown site,\u201d said Ducey.\u00a0 \u201cAt this point, we have lost faith that the redeveloper will move forward in accordance with the redevelopment plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducey continued to call the property a \u201cdrain on the taxpayers,\u201d saying the township has paid for borrowing costs while losing out on property taxes that would have been generated had the property been owned privately.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to get this property privately developed in a manner that is beneficial to the community,\u201d Ducey said. \u201cWe are confident that we are going to achieve that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brick bought the site, which was home to Foodtown and a Bradlees store, in 2003 for $6.1 million after Foodtown closed. M&M, under the agreement, would have paid Brick $7.5 million for the site when they received final approvals to build there. M&M paid for the demolition of the old Foodtown building but had not paid the township for the property, which remains under municipal ownership, since they never broke ground on any construction there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis couldn\u2019t have just been done in month one or month two,\u201d said Councilwoman Marianna Pontoriero, congratulating Ducey on his decision to terminate the agreement. \u201cThis is a long time coming, and our mayor has worked diligently from day one when he stepped into office on doing something, finally, with this site.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED 8:29 p.m. Tuesday Brick officials announced minutes before a township council meeting was set to begin Tuesday night that they would back out of an agreement with M&M Realty Partners, the redeveloper of the former Foodtown site off Route 70. Mayor John Ducey said he has notified the redeveloper that \u201che is in default […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,2],"tags":[24,286,322,323,287],"class_list":["post-1099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-government","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-foodtown","tag-jack-morris","tag-mm-realty-partners","tag-route-70"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DSC_0008.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-hJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}