Ocean Ice Palace owner walks away from Brick

The owner of the Ocean Ice Palace no longer wants to sell the Chambers Bridge Road landmark to Brick Township and has walked away from negotiations.

"She got tired of waiting," Stephan R. Leone, Joan Dwulet's attorney, said Monday. "The fact is, there was a bargain price involved. She was led to believe this would not be a protracted transaction over years. So she finally said it's time to terminate all negotiations. If the town wants to buy it, they can come with a check."

Dwulet informed township officials of her decision late last week. They received a letter from Leone that said she would no longer deal with the township and instead would consider offers from other buyers, Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis said.

"She doesn't want to deal with us anymore," he said.

Dwulet's decision came after more than a year of newspaper articles about the proposed purchase and a little more than two weeks after the group Stop OverSpending gathered enough signatures to put the $5.25 million purchase on the ballot.

"It's exactly what I talked about," Acropolis said. "I said it was going to happen.All our worst fears have been realized."

Dwulet has already listed the property with real estate brokers, Leone said.

Leone declined to discuss Dwulet's new asking price for the property.

"It's more than what the town was talking about, but I'm not at liberty to discuss the number," he said.

Dwulet and the township came to a verbal agreement on the purchase price last spring. Shortly after, Acropolis announced that Brick planned to buy the ice rink and the 13.34-acre parcel for $5.25 million.

But the proposed purchase quickly became a political issue in the 2007 mayoral campaign between Acropolis and Democratic Mayor Daniel J. Kelly. Kelly and Councilwoman Kathy Russell - the lone Democrat on the Township Council - both called repeatedly for a referendum on the purchase last summer.

Acropolis and members of the GOP-dominated Township Council nixed the proposal. Acropolis, who was council president last year, said the November 2007 mayoral election would be the referendum.

"There is a referendum in November and it's an election," Acropolis said to Kelly at the July 24, 2007, Township Council meeting. "People will either vote for you or they will vote for me. I guess that's going to be the referendum."

TownshipAttorney JeanCiprianiwarned officials last summer that talk of a referendum was hurting the negotiations between Dwulet and the township.

The quest for a referendum is "the one single thing that killed this deal," Acropolis said. But Leone said Monday it was a combination of factors. Dwulet was reaching a "point of frustration" even before the referendum push began, he said.

"It was their [the township's] inability to conclude an agreement," Leone said. "It's been one thing after another. The authorization to sell bonds, Local Finance Board approval, various and sundry other delays.We never signed an agreement."

Dwulet's pullout came just days after Township Administrator Scott M. Pezarras gave a detailed presentation on the proposed purchase at theMay 27 council meeting.

Pezarras outlined the cost and revenue projects for the controversial project and said the purchase price and first phase for the Ice Palace property would cost the average homeowner an additional $1.05 a year, or 8.7 cents per month.

Township officials in both current and past administrations had tried to cajole Dwulet into selling. She was finally ready to talk numbers in the spring of 2007.

Council members first introduced an ordinance that appropriated $5.45million last July 24. The plan was to use the site for a long-awaited community center, where recreation and senior services could be consolidated in one place. Appraiser Henry Mancini discounted the price of the ice rink building by 85 percent before coming upwith the purchase price for the property and the ice rink building.

That ordinance was later pulled because of financing problems.

Council members introduced a $9.9 million ordinance early last month to prepare for the Ice Palace property purchase. The ordinance included the original $5.25 purchase price for the site, which also included a separate building used by visiting hockey teams and a 25-yard outdoor pool. The other $4.7 million would have paid for a senior center, repairs to the interior of the ice rink, rink roof repairs, streetscaping and landscaping.

Cipriani said she was not surprised by the news.

"She's [Dwulet] waited over a year," Cipriani said. "I think it's a shame. It would have been an excellent community center. The site is perfect, and I don't think there's a match."

Dwulet is not bound by any verbal agreement with the township, Cipriani said.

"Shemade an offer and had stuck with it for a long time," she said. "Shewanted to sell. She's entitled to sell to somebody who actually will buy it."

The SOS group had ample time to push for a referendum before the bond ordinance was proposed, Cipriani said.

"I think itwas really an unfortunateway to approach it," she said. "They were well aware they could have forced a referendum six months ago. They elected to wait until the lastmoment. The end result is the township is not going to have a community center on that site unless things changemarkedly."

Cipriani said the township administration had provided information to the public as it became available.

"The township has been completely consistent in terms of how it was approaching the project," she said.

The negotiations are terminated, Leone said.

"Nobody is talking to us, we are not reaching out for them," he said.

Dwulet's late father, Leon, a well-known northern Ocean County general practice physician, built the Ice Palace in 1962.