Ididn’t understand what Jim Fitzmaurice of Rumson was complaining about in his somewhat intemperate criticism of Dr. Jennifer Francis. She questioned the financial underpinnings (or at present, the lack thereof) of a rehab plan to lease 36 Fort Hancock buildings for 60 years to an inexperienced real estate speculator who has admitted he has never done such work before.
Francis questioned whether environmental and educational tenants that the speculator keeps puffing about will be able to afford the rents needed to repay the $80 million (the numbers keep changing) needed to rehab the buildings at, say, 7 percent a year. She “guesstimated” it would require roughly $600,000 a month for debt service.
She concluded, “The only way to generate this level of cash flow would be from a substantial number of commercial, forprofit enterprises. To my knowledge, the business plan for the development has not been made publicly available. One can only assume that the public would not like what it sees in this document.”
She is right. No one has seen the business plan, expect for a few national parks “managers” (who lack the sense to even close fort windows when it rains) and a paid consultant.
James Wassel, the proposed rehabilitator, likes to emphasize his assumed environmental and educational tenants and camouflages his planned restaurants, bars, B&Bs and other non-park-related activities as a “hospitality component.” He soft-pedals his plans for business offices and other for-profit tenants, which Francis properly focused on.
The strength of Wassel’s plan can probably be best measured by the fact that when he proposed it in 1999, he didn’t have the funds NPS regulations required him to have to back up his wishful thinking. Nor does he today. But we have been reassured he finally has a potential backer – a lending firm that specializes in distressed or “subprime” commercial projects that would take over Wassel’s leases if he should fail. Such financing firms engage in what sometimes are nicknamed “vulture capital” in contrast to “venture capital.”
Francis joins many other critics of the NPS’ privatization and commercialization plan who think the NPS really is after a “profit center” of commercial enterprises that have nothing to do with conserving and protecting natural and cultural resources.
Thus, Francis is right in concluding that only an all-out commercial project – absent the warm and fuzzy environmental and educational tenants Wassel likes to tout – might make this project viable. But since Wassel hasn’t raised his funds in eight years, despite eight deadline extensions, even this possibility is very questionable.
But Wassel’s shaky plans are beside the point – the NPS’ incompetent, “almost criminal neglect,” as one newspaper editorialized, should not be used as an excuse let business into our national parks.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6) has demanded an end to this charade at Fort Hancock and Rep. Rush Holt (D-12) also has been very critical. Now our congressional representatives must reject outright this creeping commercialism by properly funding Sandy Hook and all our national parks.
As Francis correctly concludes, “Commercialization of this jewel would be a tragedy.”
George Moffatt
Oceanport