Traders Cove plans still on track, despite delay
Redevelopment ordinance adoption tabled for now
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer
Brick Township Council members postponed the adoption of the Traders Cove redevelopment plan until the Nov. 20 meeting.

The ordinance was up for a second reading at the Oct. 23 meeting, but the township's bond counsel and some residents still had questions about the plan, so it was tabled.

"No biggie," council President Stephen C. Acropolis said Monday night. "The same developer is still interested. The numbers haven't changed. The taxpayers are going to be very, very happy. There's no reason to push something through."

William deCamp, executive director of Save Barnegat Bay, an area environmental group, asked several questions about the redevelopment plan at a previous meeting.

"But no one from the administration called him," Acropolis said. "I was a little disappointed. These people have questions, and nobody from administration called them. We want to get input on everything."

Acropolis said last month that residents could expect a big announcement soon about the future of the township-owned site off Mantoloking Road.

Township Council members and the Planning Board this summer declared the Traders Cove site "an area in need of redevelopment" after some of the township's acquisition partners failed to come through with the money.

Save Barnegat Bay was one of the entities that was going to put money toward the $8 million purchase price.

But the group is "still an interested party," Acropolis said.

And Save Barnegat Bay has more residents from Brick than from any other town in the group, he said.

"But our number-one goal is to look after the taxpayers of Brick," he said. "Somebody can give us $6 million and we'll put a picnic table in the middle of it."

The township closed on the $8 million land deal with Paramount Homes on Dec. 13, 2005.

The township's share of the purchase was $1.5 million. The state Department of Environmental Protection was expected to provide between $5 million and $6 million in Green Acres grants, the Board of Freeholders $1.5 million, $1 million from nonprofit Save Barnegat Bay, and $500,000 from an anonymous donor.

Several redevelopers are interested in the site. The township has narrowed it down to one redeveloper who favors the original plans for the site, which include a renovated marina, a boating museum and a bait and tackle shop, Acropolis has said.