Damage to the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center from superstorm Sandy includes a detached access ramp and missing siding. Director Richard Keller estimates repairs will be completed, and the center will reopen, by March. The Monmouth Beach Bathing Pavilion also sustained damage as a result of the Oct. 29 storm. KENNY WALTER The Monmouth Beach Cultural Center (MBCC), damaged by superstorm Sandy, may not have a long hiatus. The borough landmark is expected to reopen by spring.
“We hope to be able to get up and be back running shortly; we are shooting for March 1,” Richard Keller, director of the MBCC, said in an interview last week.
“Basically, we got hit like everyone else did in the area,” he added. “We plan on refurbishing and rebuilding it back to the condition it was in prior to the storm.”
According to Keller, the center’s exterior and interior were damaged during the Oct. 29 superstorm that rocked much of the Jersey shore.
“The outside is pretty evident; we lost some siding and the landing that is in the front removed itself from the building,” he said. “We had about 30 inches of water inside, so it did flood.
“We lost a lot of furniture so we are going to replace that, we have great volunteers and the community has always supported us,” he added.
Also damaged during the storm was the Monmouth Beach Bathing Pavilion. Mayor Susan Howard said she hopes repairs are completed prior to the beginning of the summer season.
“We are planning to repair it and we are working with FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and our flood insurance policy to do so,” she said.
“We are going out to bid, we hope, in the next couple of weeks. The deck and the snack bar and basically the older section are gone.”
Other storm damage to the pavilion, which Howard said is a vital part of the local economy, includes the plumbing and electrical systems.
“[The pavilion] is very important to Monmouth Beach and to the people who enjoy the beach,” Howard said. “It is very important as a revenue stream to the borough.”
While many in the borough are dealing with rebuilding homes and businesses following the storm, Howard said a federal beach replenishment project began last week in Monmouth Beach.
“The beach replenishment is under way, the pumping started about a week or so ago,” she said. “It started at Cottage [Road] and it is going north to Sea Bright.”
In February, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th District) announced that approximately $12.3 million has been allocated for the project by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Of the $12,913,250 cost of the project, the federal government contributed approximately $7.5 million, in addition to $2.5 million that had been banked for the project through funding secured by Pallone in previous years. Monmouth County contributed $425,000 and Monmouth Beach provided $704,909.
Howard explained previous replenishment projects following the nor’easter in 1992 made a big difference in protecting the beachfront from the superstorm.
“I would say it absolutely did have a big difference,” she said. “You can judge that by what happened in ’92.
“When you consider this was a much larger and more devastating storm, that helped protect us,” she added. “Had we not had that beach we would have had more devastation.”
The current replenishment project is in the second phase, as the southern part of the borough beachfront received additional sand in 2011.
Howard explained some of the first-phase replenishment helped protect the borough during Sandy.
“Some of that beach had already started to migrate north,” she said. “The bottom line is, the entire town had more sand, not just because of the beach replenishment that was done in 2011 but also because the beach was rebuilt in 1994 after the ‘92 nor’easter.
“There was far more sand in front of the seawall on the north end of town when superstorm Sandy hit than there was on the east side of the seawall in ‘92,” she added.
She said the borough is working with the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center on the application that must be submitted to FEMA for reimbursement. Keller added that he is also preparing paperwork for the cultural center’s insurance carriers. He said he has not yet received an estimate on how much repairs are projected to cost.
“We are working on getting bids out,” he said.
“We have the volunteers do the [demolition] work and remove the carpeting and all the sheetrock,” he added. “We are just like everyone else, working our way back.”
The former Life Saving Station No. 4 was renovated and opened as the cultural center on May 27, 2000. The cultural center has plenty of history on display — from old photographs, prints and newspaper articles, to ship models and an early uniform of the Coast Guard, which preceded the Life Saving Service in 1915.
Keller explained the historical building has withstood previous storms but the circumstances of Sandy were different.
“The building has been there since 1895, so it’s been through its fair share of storms and there didn’t used to be a sea wall there either,” he said.
“The ocean and the river are right there, so it is just inevitable, the water has to go somewhere.”
Community groups and organizations, including the Coast Guard Auxiliary and Historical Society of Monmouth Beach, hold their meetings at the MBCC, which also frequently hosts art exhibits.
“We are there for the community; a lot of local organizations have used our facilities,” Keller said. “We are anxious to get going on repairs and like everyone else, we have to go through the process.”
He also said the center is usually closed during this time of the year and will remain closed through the winter while repairs are made.
“We always shut down for the month of December to mid-January to do house cleaning and painting and that kind of stuff,” Keller said. “We are basically going to be shut down until further notice while we get a game plan together and meet with some contractors and start getting bids.”
Keller noted that damage to the historical building could have been much worse.
“We consider it lucky since no one was hurt,” he said. “We are talking about replacing building materials and not someone getting injured or harmed.
He noted that the former life-saving station fared well compared to the fate of the neighboring Takanassee Lifesaving Station No. 5 in Long Branch. The circa 1897 Boathouse, the only building remaining on the original site in Elberon, was completely destroyed by the Oct. 29 storm.
According to Keller, originally there were life-saving stations every five miles along the coastline and very few are still standing.
“We are all positive we will get the place back up and running,” he added. “We just hope everyone else in the area gets back up and repaired and gets their lives back together as soon as they can.”