By KENNY WALTER
Staff Writer
FORT MONMOUTH — A plan to create a municipal center at Fort Monmouth with a borough hall, community center, Department of Public Works (DPW) buildings and police station may be coming together.
Mayor Jay Coffey announced during the March 3 Workshop meeting that after months of requests by residents and the Borough Council, the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority has opted to move the homeless shelter to the back end of the borough’s fort section, which may open the door for the borough to occupy several buildings on a 13-acre tract of land.
“As of last Tuesday, I was advised that the homeless shelter would no longer be in Building 901 and would be moved across the way, and now we have the availability of using Building 901 for our purposes,” Coffey said. “It can be used for a library, a community center — the square footage has to be in the range of 10,000 square feet.
“[The homeless shelter is] still in Oceanport, but it is no longer in Building 901, right in the heart of everything we are trying to do.”
While it is a legal requirement that a homeless shelter be placed in Oceanport, borough residents have long fought to have the shelter pushed farther away from residential neighborhoods and be built at the back end of the fort.
According to Coffey, with the homeless shelter moving, Building 901 is available and right in the middle of a swath of buildings already being utilized by the borough.
“We already have our DPW in Buildings 917 and 916, and also in a building called 903 we have the garage,” he said.
He also said Building 918 should be a consideration for the future borough hall.
“There’s a Building 918 that is 8,500 square [feet] with a large tract next to it, which could be used as a community garden, and we can have a community chicken coop,” Coffey said. “There’s plenty of parking there, and it might not have a courtroom availability, 901 certainly might [be the] building to put a courtroom in there.
“We don’t [know] about price yet, however, I can tell you it would be a lot cheaper than building a new building.”
Coffey said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has requested the borough begin securing a future home by next fall.
“We have about $3.5 million in FEMA money, and we have to be moving on this thing by October of this year,” he said. “We have to be moving pretty quickly by October, and I hope to be moving on this well before that.
“Hopefully, by the middle of April, we will have responses of what the cost will be. I think now we actually have a plan in place, and by the meeting of the 17th, I hope to have a presentation and show everybody what the buildings look like and how they could be retrofitted.”
Coffey said the Oceanport Police Department is currently leasing the firehouse building on the Fort Monmouth site, but it may be better to eventually take over Building 977, which is currently being used by the New Jersey State Police.
“It’s really not as operationally perfect for a police station,” he said. “I think overall the cost benefit analysis is we are probably better off at the state police building, which again consolidates everything within this 13-acre tract.”
During superstorm Sandy, an estimated four feet of water swept through the former borough hall meeting room, while up to 18 inches of water flooded the rest of the complex at 222 Monmouth Blvd., which was built in 1965. The council has been meeting at Maple Place Elementary School.
The borough has considered several options for the municipal building, including rebuilding on the current site, occupying various buildings at the fort or constructing a building at either Maria Gatta Park or East Main Street.