Borough will focus on center, downtown in ‘02 Train station redevelopment also on agenda

Staff Writer

By alison granito

Borough will focus on center, downtown in ‘02
Train station
redevelopment
also on agenda

MATAWAN — As this year wraps up and everyone looks forward to next year, borough officials expect a smooth transition into 2002.

The Borough Council will hold its annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 1 at noon in the council chambers at the Broad Street Community and Municipal Center, where the council will begin its second year in an all-Republican administration.

According to Mayor Robert Clifton, this year saw significant movement on many projects, some of which had been hanging before the borough for years, particularly the renovations at the Broad Street Community and Municipal Center.

"We really got some real work done at the community center this year," said Clifton. "Being able to at least complete the dais and council room earlier this year put us off to a good start."

With the first phase of the community center renovations complete, work has begun and the second phase, which will ready the building for the move of municipal administrative offices from Main Street to the Broad Street facility later next year. Site work, including landscaping and parking improvements and improvements to the athletic fields on the Broad Street grounds, is also part of phase II.

The third and final phase of the renovations, which will complete a new police wing, is expected to begin in late 2002.

Clifton also cited the completion of phase I of the improvements to the Lake Lefferts Recreation Area, which wrapped up at the end of this summer. A canoe rack, walkway around the lake complete with decorative lighting, and new floating docks are among the improvements made this year.

"Since it will be open for the season next year, we’re hoping that everyone in town gets out there and takes full advantage of the facilitates there," said Clifton.

Along with the improvements on Broad Street and at Lake Lefferts, the council continued its drive to breathe life back into what was a flagging downtown district.

The mayor said that the council has taken "the real first step in on downtown redevelopment" by authorizing the borough engineer to draw up plans for a streetscape project to improve the appearance of Main Street. Also tied in with the efforts to give downtown a new look will be a pocket park on Main Street, likely to be developed by the borough in conjunction with the Downtown Matawan Alliance.

Borough officials have said that they hope that their efforts to revitalize the downtown will tie into the larger project that to redevelop the 100-acre area around the Aberdeen-Matawan train station, which is a joint venture the borough is undertaking with neighboring Aberdeen and NJ Transit.

With a traffic study set to begin early next year and the municipalities set to advertise for requests for proposals from developers next spring, Clifton is optimistic about the gains to be made on the project next year.

"We will see some progress on redevelopment," said the mayor. "Although we would love to see some bulldozers in the ground next year, with a project like this one, it will probably take a long time to see real, significant change."

With many of the borough’s major projects rolling along smoothly, some loose ends remain at year’s end.

The dams on Lake Lefferts and Lake Matawan, which are both in need of millions of dollars worth of repairs, still pose a problem for the borough.

"Next year we are intending to go after all the state funding we can get on the dams so we can finally see work progress on that," the mayor said.