SERA offers to buy National Lead property

The Sayreville Economic Redevelopment Agency (SERA) has offered to purchase the National Lead Industries site off Chevalier Avenue for close to $4 million, the agency announced last week.

The figure is the difference between the reported value of the property, which is about $32.1 million, and the estimated cost of environmental remediation, $28.1 million, according to a press release from SERA.

The borough-created independent agency has attempted to gain control of approximately 400 acres owned by NL Industries along the borough’s Raritan Bay waterfront for several years. SERA hopes to oversee the cleanup and redevelopment of the site that NL used until the company shut down its chemical manufacturing plant located there in 1982.

"Our offer to purchase the NL property is the culmination of many months of investigation and efforts to make sure [it] is cleaned up and developed for good ratables," Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said.

According to O’Brien, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) asked NL to create a plan for the remediation of the property in 1995. However, NL failed to comply with the request until four years later, and its plan was found to be incomplete, SERA officials said.

SERA filed suit against NL Industries in state Superior Court in New Brunswick in November 2001. The agency hoped to term the site as contaminated so it could be turned over to the borough for remediation and redevelopment.

SERA, which is a self-financed agency that was created by the Sayreville Borough Council in 1998, is working to use the land for the benefit of the borough, the mayor said. Borough residents will not incur any cost for the work that SERA is doing, he said.

O’Brien said last week that the 400-acre property brings in $300,000 per year in property taxes.

He said that if the property is cleaned and used for something such as office space or a hotel convention center, the property could produce $20 million in annual taxes.

"SERA’s main focus has been to eliminate the eyesore of the NL property and ensure that all environmental contamination is cleaned up," Christine O. Spezzi, SERA’s chairwoman, said last week.

Additional plans for redevelopment in the area include bringing in what O’Brien referred to as cyberbusiness. The location of Sayreville is ideal for cyberbusiness, he said, as the borough has the cyberoptic trunk lines and back-up electric supply necessary for these types of businesses.

— Jennifer Dome