While the Springfield Community Partnership or "BID" has been around for over six years, not all of its progress is easily seen.  Much work has been done by it's all volunteer Board since 2011.  Certainly the quarterly business promotions, monthly business spotlights in the Patriot Times, streetscape improvements, new directional signs and events are in the public eye.  They are easy to see but that's the tip of the iceberg.  Countless hours have been spent behind the scenes working on downtown redevelopment.  

Just this week several important meetings took place regarding our downtown.   When we began this project in 2011, we all knew it was a 5 to 10 year project before we would see the type of vibrant downtown we all want for Springfield.  With the support of the full Township Committee for the past 6 years, progress is being made.  The following is a letter from Business Administrator Ziad Shehady we wanted to share with everyone to give you an update of what has been happening behind the scenes.

Scott Seidel & Mike Scalera

Co-Chairman, Springfield BID and Springfield Patriot Chamber of Commerce

As you know, this week, we had a meeting in Trenton with the Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners and other staff of the NJ DOT and NJ DEP to work through regulatory permitting related to the Morris & Center LLC project (a.k.a. the Gomes Project).so I wanted to provide you with an update.

 

Just to give you a quick recap:

As you know, the project has been moving along for a few years now, slowly but steadily and with a clear goal.  It has been following a fairly typical path of other major redevelopment​ projects of this scale - it's been taking time but I'm optimistic and as you hear from me often, there is progress even though it isn't always visible. Thanks to the BID and redevelopment counsel, a few years ago we formulated a preliminary plan in cooperation with the property owner that was approved by the Township Committee and Planning Board. The owner then received his developer designation, and with that we've been moving towards realizing the plan which has been funded by developers escrow.  While the plan has been going through the reviews and permitting, the owner has been slowly vacating his spaces either as leases expire or by negotiation.  He demolished one of the structures last year.  The remaining structure, the largest, is now completely vacant (the last tenant holding out, the gym on the corner, moved out last week).  This is great news and the developer has indicated he is in a position now to be able to schedule demolition.  This was not scheduled earlier because it requires utility cut-offs, asbestos abatement, rodent abatement, etc. and as long as he had any tenants, he was limited in what he could do.  Additionally, he was unwilling to demolish other structures because the cost of mobilizing equipment didn't make sense for him only to do half the building and return for the other half.

 

While demolition is on the horizon, it will still take some time due to the issue of utility poles and getting DOT & DEP permits approved.  Why?  Morris Avenue is a State highway and since both Caldwell Place and Center Street are part of the plan, along with bumpouts, DOT approval is necessary.  That part of Morris Avenue also falls within DEP purview.  The developer has been hitting unexpected bureaucratic/state roadblocks that have been throwing kinks in the plan despite earlier indications things would not be problematic.  That is why I called for a meeting ​with our state legislators, Sen Kean, Asm Bramnick, and Asw Munoz.  They heard our pitch and we walked them through the downtown and were eager to help us out.  That same day, the called the Commissioners of both Departments to request meetings with them.

 

Also in the works along the way, the Business Improvement District had been designing window wraps to address the vacant look and attract tenants.  These were installed recently at the BID's expense and if they are useful for a few months before demolition, they are certainly welcome.  It was felt they would survive until at least March because the last leaseholder, the gym, wasn't leaving before then and the permitting and utility work would still take around 90-120 days after that.

 

Today:

Thanks to our legislators, we got meetings in Trenton (2 different departments in one day​, quite the feat in coordination) on Wednesday.

In addition to our legislators and the most senior staff at DOT and DEP, we went with the developer, his engineer, his traffic consultant, our redevelopment attorney, and our engineer.​

The meetings were most helpful and offered us, but especially the developer, some renewed hope and reason to be optimistic.

 

DOT - from the previous meeting with staff there, they indicated the developer would now be responsible for completely updating the Caldwell/Morris intersection traffic light system (ADA, pedestrian, crosswalks, lights) in its ENTIRETY even though he was just creating one bumpout and only touching a small part of it.  This would add years to the project and several hundred thousands of dollars.  We reiterated at this week's meeting that we hoped we can get some relief because it was ​in our opinion, DOT responsibility to update their decades old light, and that this plan was designed because of their input years ago to add the bump out.  We would be happy to redesign this bumpout so as to not trigger such a massive undertaking.  They assigned the Commissioner's Chief of Staff to our case to help facilitate this redesign and plan modification so that there would not be any surprises again in order to get the approvals we seek.

 

DEP - at issue there, despite earlier indications to the developer the problems would be easily resolvable, is the ingress/egress out of his project.  One office there is interpreting a regulation (in our opinion, incorrectly) by using his discretion to widen the scope of the regulation rather than following the letter of the law.  He is saying that one of the ingress/egress driveways from the project is in a flood hazard area that is not one feet above the FHA flood elevation and so it can't be counted.  He is saying the second one can't be counted either - even though it is one foot above the FHA elevation as required, in the event of a 100-year storm, no one on the property would be able to get around in town to anywhere meaningful.  This interpretation is so far reaching it would cripple any redevelopment in the town.   Additionally, this assumes no one evacuates in a 100-year storm and that in a 100-year storm, people would be out and about carrying on their normal lives.  Furthermore, they neglect to take into consideration point elevations for the one block portion of roadway that is in the FHA.  At this meeting Wednesday, they indicated a rule-change was in the works to allow flexibility in this interpretation and that they would take into account ​the point elevations if we provided a topographical map.  

 

Next steps:

I already have a follow-up meeting scheduled with the DOT Chief of Staff next week.  The DEP rule change is expected to be formalized by the end of the year and we are having the developer order an elevation survey to be completed in the next week or two.  Concurrently, we're exploring other plan modifications in case these don't work out the way we need so as to minimize delays to the project.

 

Some other things going on as part of our Morris Avenue redevelopment plan:

The Church Mall project is awaiting modification to be in compliance with the state-ordered affordability housing requirements.  The developer is unhappy about these new burdensome regulations but it is not within our jurisdiction.  He will hopefully have his modified plans submitted in time for the December planning board meeting.

 

The Century 21-Church Mall Parking lot is also moving along.  We have completed our due diligence investigations of the parking lot and are prepared to brief you in Executive Session at the November 13th Township Committee meeting concerning the negotiations of the Purchase and Sale Agreement for the Parking Lot.  Once the P&S Agreement and Financial Agreements are approved, the developer can go to the Planning Board and that project can be ready to start fairly immediately.  Sam, Matt and I have a meeting this afternoon with the developer and attorney for this project to work on more of the details for the agreements.  Hopefully it can be ready to go on the January Planning Board agenda.​

 

I'm never one to sit back and wait so I've already asked the property owner of another property to ​work on preliminary/concept drawings for the next project so that we can present to you for consideration.

 

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, let me know.  I've copied Michael Scalera and Scott Seidel of the BID and Chamber because of their past, present and continued involvement on these and so that they can provide an update to their membership.​  I want to thank them for their hard work and time on this - they're volunteers getting paid absolutely nothing and taking time out of running their own businesses to show up whenever, wherever they're called up and believe me, I call on them a lot for their help.

 

Respectfully,

 

Z​iad Shehady