Borough would reap $12.8M over 30 years
BY JIM BRUMM
For the Star-Ledger
The Sayreville Borough Council approved a financial agreement with a power transmission company that is proposing construction of an electricity converter station on an abandoned industrial site owned by the municipality.
Under the agreement, Neptune RTS, a Maine-based partnership, will pay Sayreville more than $418,000 per year for 30 years if it goes ahead with plans to build a power converter station on the 12-acre site. The borough plans to buy the land from the Sayreville Economic & Redevelopment Agency, which owns the 86 acres that made up the former Sayre & Fisher brick manufacturing site that gave the borough its name.
The payment, which will be in lieu of taxes, is set by state law, Economic & Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Randy Corman told the council before Monday night's vote. The law says the payment will be 2 percent of a project's cost, which is projected to be $20.9 million, he said.
Pending changes in state law governing redevelopment projects spurred borough officials to schedule a vote on the agreement Monday night, Borough Attorney Stacey Adams said when asked about the urgency of voting now. She pointed out this had been fully explained at the council's agenda meeting a week earlier.
Legislation that has already cleared the state Senate would force Sayreville to share 5 percent of the annual payment with Middlesex County, she said.
The project still needs the approval of the Sayreville Planning Board, Neptune RTS Chief Operating Officer Paul Rich said after the vote. The company will be meeting with the redevelopment agency tomorrow to prepare an application for the board's July meeting, he said.
Rich said the company hopes to start construction during the first half of 2004 on a facility capable of shipping 600 megawatts of electricity to Long Island via a cable under New York Harbor. That is roughly the amount of power Staten Island consumes on an average day.
With an expected construction time of 18 months, beginning work in the first or second quarter of next year would allow deliveries of electricity to begin by early 2006, Rich explained.
The station in Sayreville would convert the alternating current flowing through New Jersey's electric transmission lines to direct current for more efficient transmission via the undersea cable. In Long Island, the power would be converted back to alternating current for transmission across the island.
Copyright 2003 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved.
BY JIM BRUMM
For the Star-Ledger
The Sayreville Economic and Redevelopment Agency authorized its professionals last night to begin negotiations with developers on a $250 million proposal to build a minor league baseball stadium, ice hockey arena, hotel and retail mall along the Raritan River.
The project, called Arenum by the Bay at Sayreville, would utilize more than 100 acres of the former National Lead Industries site on both sides of Route 35. Put together by Monmouth County developer Peter English, the project was originally proposed for the former ASARCO site on the Arthur Kill in Perth Amboy.
Asked about the earlier proposal, English told the redevelopment agency "the problem is there's not enough land (available at the ASARCO site) to meet our needs.
"We are not asking for Sayreville to provide any money for this project," English pointed out, adding its location along Route 35 near the Garden State Parkway and Route 9 means there would be "no detrimental traffic effect" on the borough.
English is vice president of project development at Global Redevelopment Corp., a Newark-based company formed to carry out the Arenum by the Bay project.
Noting that negotiations continue for the borough's purchase of the National Lead tract, which also includes roughly 300 acres west of the Parkway, Mayor Kennedy O'Brien urged the redevelopment agency to begin formal negotiations with Global.
Sayreville has been ordered to post a $32 million bond before it takes over the tract, which is still owned by NL Industries, the current name of the company that once manufactured paint at the site.
Global Chief Executive Officer John Meo said the company expects to spend "about a quarter billion" dollars to acquire and clean up the land and build Arenum by the Bay.
English said Global expects Arenum by the Bay to be completed about two years after ground is broken. Initially the baseball stadium would seat 5,500, he said, adding it "can grow to 7,000." The ice arena is expected to seat 8,500.
Before listening to Global's presentation, the redevelopment agency continued negotiations with Neptune RTS, which has proposed a 600-megawatt power conversion plant on another former industrial site. Monday night, the borough council approved a financial agreement with Neptune RTS calling for payments of more than $418,000 a year for 30 years if the plant is built.
The power conversion plant will feed electricity into a 67-mile cable proposed by Neptune RTS to carry electricity under Raritan Bay, New York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean to Hempstead Bay on Long Island's south shore, where the cable would go ashore to deliver the power to the Long Island Power Authority.
Attorney Raymond Siberine, who represented Neptune RTS last night, said the redevelopment agency is expected to consider a resolution approving the project at its July 10 meeting, adding this would allow the Sayreville Planning Board to begin consideration of the plan in September.