Officials are moving forward with plans to renovate the historic Roosevelt Care Center, located at the intersection of Oakwood Avenue and Parsonage Road in Edison.
The Township Council voted at its Aug. 28 meeting to support the proposed project, which involves the creation of 85 rental units for an affordable senior living complex, to be built by Middlesex County and Pennrose Properties LLC.
Township Attorney Karl Kemm said that as part of the financing for the renovation, the county needed the council’s support in the form of a resolution.
Thomas Kelso, the attorney representing the county, said the redevelopment includes 73 one-bedroom units and 12 two-bedroom units, as well as one unit for a managerial staff member.
He said the project, dubbed the Roosevelt Hospital Housing Development, will be subject to the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency Law requirements, and will be funded in part by Community Development Block Grant funds; a 4 percent tax credit through Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency financing; and federal historical tax credits of approximately $5 million.
Eligibility to live in the units will be determined by income, and will be on a firstcome, first-served basis, Kelso said. One must be a senior to live in the units.
The Roosevelt Care Center campus in Edison was built as a tuberculosis hospital on 13 acres in 1937. Constructed as part of the Works Project Administration, it was named in honor of the program’s creator, former president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The site is listed on the state’s historic registry.
In the 1950s, it was converted to a longterm care facility, and rehabilitation and recreation programs were added. Additions to the hospital were constructed in 1978 and in the early 1980s. Portions of the obsolete original facility are now functioning as a medical center — treating terminal and disabling diseases, and the chronically ill with rehabilitation services and outpatient clinics. These functions are no longer required, because a skilled 180-bed nursing facility was constructed in 2005 across the street. Another new facility, also a 180-bed building, opened in Old Bridge in 2011.
Resident Jane Tousman said she is concerned about the process. She said there should have been a public hearing and presentation on the renovation project.
The resolution came about at a work session meeting after the council held a closed session on Aug. 26.
Tousman also expressed concern about the historic nature of the building, the fact that the building sits in Roosevelt Park and the traffic surrounding the proposed units.
Council President Robert Diehl said the planned project is not the proposal that was brought to the council last year.
“It was a much broader plan last sum- mer,” he said. “They are just renovating the interior of the building and preserving the outside.”
The plan last summer included senior affordable housing, a new-construction mixed-income residential building, and potentially, a small medical office building. However, after concerns were raised regarding the historical aspect and the people currently living in the facility, the proposal did not move forward.
As part of the renovation process, a wing of the building will be demolished. But with the $5 million in historic tax credits, the plan is to preserve the historic integrity of the building, Kelso said.
Resident Lois Wolke said the whole project scares her.
“This may be a little piece of the project now, but what happens down the road?” she said.
Diehl said he agreed with her concerns, and assured her that the council would stay vigilant regarding the project.
Resident Walt Schneer said he has a family member living in the facility and was told that during the renovations, parts of the facility will be closed individually.
The current residents of the 88 occupied independent units at Roosevelt will either move to the facility across the street or to the facility in Old Bridge.