Historic Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook was serene last Friday morning; the only signs of life were the Marine Academy of Science and Technology students practicing their drill on the parade grounds behind the row of officers’ houses built in the late 1800s that line the winding road that borders Sandy Hook Bay.
There were no signs of the battle that has been waged over the fort for the past 10 years, a battle that appears to have ended Nov. 24 when the National Park Service’s Gateway National Recreation Area terminated the 2007 lease that Rumson developer James Wassel held on three buildings at the fort: the chapel, the theater and the old park service headquarters.
“Due to potential legal issues the park [service] is not making any further comment about the lease termination,” the announcement of the NPS’s action said.
Wassel did not respond to a telephone message asking for comment left with a family member on Friday. Sandy Hook Partners, Wassel’s company, has had offices in the old NPS headquarters since 2002, and has rented out the chapel and theater to the public for events such as weddings since 2007.
Last year the park service canceled Wassel’s 60-year lease to renovate and commercially develop 36 buildings or more at the fort. The lease, which was signed in 2004, never went into effect because, after a series of extensions beginning in 2002, Wassel had not been able to demonstrate he had the financial resources to carry out his plan, the NPS said. However, Wassel has been permitted use of the former park service headquarters since 2002, two years before he signed the 2004 lease.
When asked why the developer was permitted to use the building before a lease went into effect, a park service spokeswoman said at the time that Wassel was like “a bride-in-waiting.”
Opponents of the Wassel plan, including Save Sandy Hook (SSH), a grassroots group that unsuccessfully went to court to challenge the 2004 lease, objected to Sandy Hook Partners’ continued presence at the fort, stating that the 2007 lease was invalid because it was based on a clause in the 2004 lease that never went into effect since the developer never proved he could finance the project as the first lease required.
Now the emphasis is on the future of the fort’s buildings. The park service has said it does not have the funds to repair and maintain them and that was why it turned to a private developer to pay for the work.
But Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th District), an opponent of the Wassel proposal, said in a statement after the announcement terminating Sandy Hook Partners’ lease that he had “long been an outspoken critic of the commercial plans of Sandy Hook Partners and [I] believe the lease did not serve the public interest.”
Pallone said he looks forward to working with the park service “in pursuing rehabilitation on a building-by-building basis that ensures such a valuable landmark is preserved for future generations.
“Engaging the community in the discussion of the future of the fort needs to be a central part of the process as new plans are developed,” Pallone said.
Last month, Pallone asked the park service to appoint one person who would concentrate on the rehabilitation of the historic buildings. He said the past management of the park “is the best example of how not to manage the park in the future,” and urged the park service to move away from large development proposals such as Wassel’s. Besides maintenance and improving Sandy Hook, Pallone said, “Preserving the historic buildings at Sandy Hook and preventing commercial use of the buildings has been a top priority.”
He also said that that the delay of 10 years since the park service selected Wassel’s plan from among 22 submitted had the result that the “irresponsible lessee allowed the valuable buildings to deteriorate.”
At an open house held by the park service to obtain input from the public on future plans for the Sandy Hook unit of Gateway last month, Peter McCarthy, the unit manager for Sandy Hook, said the park service is moving forward on seeking tenants for the individual buildings covered by the canceled 2004 lease, concentrating on universities and educational institutions. He said if any nonprofits are interested in leasing the buildings, they should contact him. McCarthy said Pallone would be involved in the planning for the fort.
New Jersey Friends of Clearwater, formerlyMonmouth County Friends of Clearwater, might be one of the organizations exploring the use of one of the Officers’ Row buildings. The group occupied a building on Officers’ Row for 16 years and did extensive repairs and maintenance work on it, but was forced to leave when the park service selected Wassel as the developer of the project.
Ed Dlugosz, president of Clearwater, said Friday that when the park service had asked for proposals in 1999 for leasing the buildings, “We had a great package” of financing. But the leases for all but one building, the American Littoral Society headquarters, were given to Wassel and Clearwater had to leave.
He said the group would have to raise at least twice the amount it would have in 1999, because expenses for repairs have risen and the building Clearwater had worked to renovate had deteriorated since it was vacant.
Also, Clearwater is no longer permitted by the park service to hold its annual festival at Sandy Hook, which had been its biggest fundraiser, Dlugosz said. He said Clearwater was having a retreat in January and would discuss if the environmental group should try to return to Fort Hancock.
“We’d love to go back there and have our festival,” he said. But with a drop in membership since the departure from the fort building and the increase in costs to rehabilitate the building, “it’s daunting unless we get an angel,” he said, but may be possible.
James Coleman, who headed Save Sandy Hook along with his late wife Judith Stanley Coleman, said he blamed the park service for what transpired with the Wassel leases. Referring to the park service, Coleman, a former county prosecutor, state assemblyman and Superior Court judge, said, “They didn’t do what they were supposed to do. They broke the law. I just can’t understand why they can be so blasé about their own rules.”
Coleman said that Wassel didn’t show funding resources as required to qualify for a lease for the fort buildings; therefore, the 2004 and 2007 leases were never valid.
“What took them so long to cancel the leases?” he asked, adding that the park service should have done this “nine years ago.”
Coleman noted that a newspaper account of the lease termination said Wassel was going to meet with the park service and he expressed concern that a deal would be worked out with the developer concerning the fort buildings.
Peter O’Such, Fair Haven, a retired government procurement specialist and a member of Save Sandy Hook, said when he received a call asking for comment on the termination of the developer’s 2007 lease, he replied, “If this is not a crank call, Christmas has come early to the O’Such household.”
O’Such said he had obtained information about the Wassel leases from a Freedom of Information Act request and based on that calculated the park service had received less than $15,000 in income for the three buildings from Wassel since 2007.
He said he had discussed this with Mc- Carthy and another park official at a meeting where he said he was told that commercial use of the buildings at the fort was still an option open to the park service and had not been ruled out.
But the officials said they would no longer seek to lease all the buildings to one developer as had been done with Wassel.
O’Such faulted the park service for basing the 2007 lease on the 2004 lease that was not in effect.
“They do whatever they please,” O’Such said, “not even following their own rules.”