Township, developer in court
by Paul Koepp, Staff Writer
Stretching from Major Road to Deans Lane and from Route 1 to the Northeast Corridor train tracks, more than 400 acres of woods and wetlands sit vacant, except for an 8,800-foot dead-end road.
Now the developer of the land, one of the largest undeveloped tracts on Route 1 between Princeton and New Brunswick, is suing the township and the Planning Board for breach of contract. The company, South Brunswick Center LLC, says it could lose its rights to build what could amount to more than 6 million square feet of office space valued at well over $1 billion.
South Brunswick Center LLC missed a June 2006 deadline to complete the road, including a bridge that spans some wetlands, meaning it could lose protections from a 1995 developer’s agreement that keeps the land zoned as Office Research. The company says that the tract is less marketable without the zoning protection.
But the township maintains that the developer should have finished the road on time, especially since it was granted a two-year extension from the original June 2004 deadline.
Attorneys for the company and for the township started arguing the lawsuit Oct. 25 in state Superior Court in New Brunswick before Judge James Hurley.
Steven Rother, an attorney for South Brunswick Center LLC, said the road was not finished on time because of delays caused by the township engineer, CME. He said CME took too long in granting permits to start construction. Work on the road started in September 2003, and construction of the 500-foot bridge began in 2005, with all work done by the end of 2006.
William Iafe, the representative for South Brunswick Center LLC who is in charge of the site, testified that the bridge was especially hard to build because it was designed as a high-speed road with banked turns.
He said the design was inherited from the original developer’s agreement, which called for the road to service not only the property’s tenants, but also through traffic.
The Planning Board approved a plan in June 1994 to subdivide 413 acres of the site into 13 office-research lots and one residential lot. A developer’s agreement providing for 6.43 million square feet of office space was signed in May 1995 between the township and the company that previously controlled the site, First Union Bank subsidiary Jersey Center/Fidoreo Inc.
South Brunswick Center LLC acquired the site in June 1998.
The 20-year vesting period of the developer’s agreement was conditioned on the construction by the developer of a two-lane road called the Northumberland Connection by June 14, 2004. The road, which would allow Northumberland Way to run from Route 1 across Major Road to Route 522, was included in the circulation element of the township’s Master Plan through 2001.
Mr. Iafe said the company has spent $6.9 million on the road, including $3.3 million for the bridge.
With the cost of buying the property added in, he said, “We have $9.6 million out there doing absolutely nothing.”
Mr. Iafe also said that the loss of zoning protection would make it more difficult to sell or lease the land, since prospective tenants would be worried that bulk and use standards like the allowable percentage of site coverage could change.
”I’m at a competitive disadvantage,” he said. “If the property’s yield goes down, we lose.”
Mr. Rother added that the road cannot currently be used because the town has not acquired the property necessary to connect it to the rest of Northumberland Way at Major Road. The northern section of Northumberland Way is now barricaded just past the intersection with Cornwall Road, preventing access to the bridge.
”It was a road that led to nowhere,” he said, pointing out that the company was only required to build the road to the southern boundary of its property if the land adjacent to Major Road was not acquired.
He said the township’s refusal to extend the deadline for completing the developer’s section of the road is “totally arbitrary and punitive.”
Township Attorney Don Sears said the company knew the conditions in the developer’s agreement when it bought the property in 1998.
”The township always had the option to acquire the (Major Road) property or not,” he said. “The owner knew it was at the township’s discretion.”
Mr. Sears also said the two-year extension granted by the Planning Board and Township Council in 2004 should have been enough.
”The township gave the plaintiff eight years, and now they’re asking for still more time,” he said. “How many times can they come to the well and ask for more time?”
Ben Bucca, the attorney for the Planning Board, said the company still has the original subdivision approval, and although it may lose zoning protection, the property is still zoned OR and there are no plans to rezone it.
The subdivision approval only governs how the lots on the property are carved up. It does not affect the bulk and use standards, which could change after the vesting period expires.
Meanwhile, the man whose Major Road property stands in the way of connecting the two parts of Northumberland Way, Frank Totten, wants to keep his home.
”I certainly would listen (to any offers), but I want to stay here,” he said in a telephone interview Monday.
Referring to his property’s potential value if the developer or the township wants to purchase it, he said, “When I bought it, I didn’t know how lucky I was.”
Mr. Totten, a retired English teacher at New Brunswick High School, has lived in his house for 40 years. He said nobody from the township has spoken to him about acquiring the property, although a South Brunswick Center representative approached him about it in early 2006.
Mr. Totten said the situation is “in limbo” and “stands just as it did in 1989,” except that now the road built by the developer comes to about 200 feet from his property.
Mayor Frank Gambatese said Tuesday that the developer of the Southridge Woods apartments, to the south, was originally responsible for acquiring the land for the connecting road, but the company never pursued the purchase.
He said the Township Council has not considered eminent domain to acquire Mr. Totten’s property and no longer considers the road connection a priority.
Still, Mayor Gambatese would like to see construction on the South Brunswick Center site, saying that a development in the OR zone “would be a good addition to the township.”

