HOWELL— According to Howell officials, the employees of some municipal offices could begin working out of the Global office building ahead of the target date of July 1.
The municipality purchased the Route 9 office building in August 2011 from Zee Jay Realty LLC, Lakewood, for $5.2 million. The new municipal complex could begin housing administration and financial offices as early as the end of May, according to Mayor Robert Walsh and Deputy Mayor William Gotto.
Gotto and Walsh said having administration employees, particularly Township Manager Helene Schlegel, in the Global building will benefit Howell’s transition to the new town hall.
“The sooner we get the manager over there, overseeing it on a day-to-day basis while she is there, the better it will be for all of us,” Walsh said.
The mayor said Schlegel has been making frequent trips between the current municipal complex on Preventorium Road and the future home of Howell’s government.
Gotto said other municipal employees who interact with the community will be better served relocating to the Global building after sidewalk and railing work has been completed at that location.
“They can’t really go there until the bulk of all this [repair] work is done,” he said. “It does make sense as to why the administration would actually be going there first, because most people do not go to town hall to see administration.”
At the March 26 meeting of the Township Council, the council awarded contracts for the railing and sidewalk repairs and contracts to replace heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) rooftop units and controls at the Global building.
The council awarded the HVAC contract to DeSena Engineering, which was the lowest qualified bidder at $445,400.
GCS Contractors Corp. was awarded a contract for the sidewalk and railing work with a bid of $299,000.
Gotto said both contractors are available to start work immediately. He said the HVAC work and the railing and sidewalk repairs must be completed within 14 weeks and 10 weeks, respectively, as per the contracts.
He said the cost of the work is less than estimates provided by Birdsall Services Group professionals, which recommended the repairs in an April 2011 report to the council.
“All of this, every single thing we have done, has been included in the total amount that was included in the overall project,” Gotto said.
The $5.2 million that was used to purchase the Global building was part of a $6.9 million reserve left over from a previous municipal bond issue, according to township officials. The remaining $1.7 million has been set aside to address costs incurred by preparing the office building for municipal use.
At the same meeting, the council members discussed the future of Howell’s human services building and the building that houses the tax collector’s office. Both of those buildings are on Route 524 (Adelphia Road), and they will be vacated after municipal offices fully relocate to the new municipal complex.
Schlegel said the human services building’s non-municipal occupants, the Howell food pantry and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, could be relocated to the Southard School, which is now housing some community uses.
Walsh and Councilman Robert Nicastro expressed a desire to offer the Route 524 buildings to nonprofit organizations for potential use as group homes for special-needs residents.
Township Attorney McKenna Kingdon said the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency is asking municipalities to dedicate $250,000 from a special-needs housing trust fund toward the purchase or rehabilitation of a home.
The state’s goal, Kingdon said, is to implement the program quickly in order to move 100 people off the special-needs housing waiting list by July. She noted that between eight and 10 municipalities have participated in the program, including neighboring Brick Township and Jackson.
Kingdon said groups have contacted her about the possibility of using the program, but declined to specify which groups made inquiries.
Nicastro and Walsh noted that such a housing project would be a non-conforming use at the Human Services building, due to zoning,
“There are limitations on what can be done on that property,” Walsh said, adding that he believes officials could rezone the property.
Kingdon remarked that providing a variance for a specific non-conforming use may be a more prudent solution than rezoning the property.
Gotto said he wants to know the value of the Route 524 buildings before he decides whether he would be in support of offering the buildings to a nonprofit organization.
“I told the public when we went and bought the new municipal building [Global] that I was going to do everything I could to get as much revenue as possible off those [Route 524] buildings,” he said. “To me, it’s about the dollars and cents.
“So even though this is obviously more admirable and noble, I still think we need to know what the value of that property is and then be able to make that decision,” Gotto added.
— Contact James McEvoy at [email protected].