By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
Surprise and anger was countered by praise and encouragement as Borough Council members and members of the public spoke out Wednesday at a public accounting of the finances of Princeton’s downtown redevelopment project and discussion of the status of the project’s leak-plagued parking garage.
Parking revenue was inexplicably down last year at the garage, according to the borough, while operating expenses were significantly higher than planned. At the meeting, an outside engineer acknowledged that repeated flooding of the garage basement could have rusted reinforced steel bars embedded in the garage’s concrete and that the garage’s useful life could be shortened as a result.
While some residents excoriated the council for overselling and mishandling the project — Phase 2 of which has been delayed for years as the borough and developer Nassau HKT attempt to iron out disputes over terms and conditions — others, including representatives from the Borough Merchants for Princeton and Princeton Future, spoke of its long-term benefits, and valuable contributions to a better downtown despite the delays and mishaps.
Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi displayed a spreadsheet of the project’s estimated and actual revenues and expenses which indicated that, despite fee increases, garage parking revenue was $872,000 in 2007, down from $949,000 in 2006 and far below 2007 estimates of $1,395,000. Tulane Street surface parking revenue was $226,000 in 2007, an increase over the $197,000 collected in 2006.
For about eight months in 2007, “we did see a flattening off in the use of the garage,” Mr. Bruschi said. “We have seen that now change back. I don’t know what the anomaly was for eight months last year,” he said.
Library reimbursement to the borough for free parking plummeted, from almost $68,000 in 2006 to $800 in 2007, the result of the curtailment of a borough-township arrangement to subsidize library parking which has since been reinstated, but this could not account for the decline in other revenue, Mr. Bruschi said.
Overall parking revenues from the redevelopment project were down $116,000 in 2007, according to Mr. Bruschi. The ultimate construction of Building C on the Tulane Street lot, as part of Phase 2 of the project, would add $400,000 annually to borough coffers due to more use of the garage as well as bringing in more residential and retail land lease income, which would diversify revenue to the borough away from parking, reducing the borough’s reliance on parking revenue, Mr. Bruschi said.
”I would throw that in as a positive to the project and it always has been from day one,” Mr. Bruschi said.
Operating expenses for the garage were $345,000 in 2007, $30,000 above 2006 and well above original estimates of $210,000 to $230,000 due to keeping the garage staffed longer hours than originally planned, Mr. Bruschi said.
”We have gone overboard I will say, in staffing the garage from a public relations standpoint,” Mr. Bruschi said. Although the garage can operate unmanned, it was staffed because of “issues with people from out of town” as well as late night patrons who had frequently broken through the gates and failed to pay, he said. “We recognize we have to cut back on the costs,” he added.
Councilman David Goldfarb called the parking revenue drop and high operating expenses for the garage “troublesome.”
Princeton Avenue resident Mark Alexandridis, a longtime critic of the project and its optimistic financial projections, said by his calculations “the cumulative loss to the taxpayer is $3.1 million” over the history of the project.
Although some council members questioned the methodology of his calculations, Mr. Alexandridis said, “I’d like to see someone convince me we can ever get to zero on this project, because I don’t think we can.” He said the project will run a significant deficit for at least 10 or 15 years, and urged the council to pull the plug on Phase 2.
”There are some assumptions that haven’t panned out, no doubt,” said Mr. Bruschi. However, “this is what we have at this point in time,” he said. “We have a garage and we are doing the best we can to operate it.”
”I think when you sell a project you should sell it fairly,” Mr. Alexandridis responded. He said the terms of the Nassau HKT agreement “were off market in 2002, and if they are off market in 2002 they are really off market in 2008.”
”You are perfectly entitled to criticize the terms in hindsight and your criticisms are generally valid,” Mr. Goldfarb said.
”Whether the terms are fair in 2008 we negotiated the deal in 2002 and we are bound by the terms,” he said, adding he was not convinced the borough could legitimately terminate the agreement now.
Linden Lane property owner Eleanor Lewis said as part of a group of over 75 residents “we believed your assumptions were aggressive” when the project was originally contemplated, but the group’s concerns were ignored by the borough administration. “It turns out we weren’t wrong, we were right and you were wrong, and it will come out of the taxpayers hide,” Ms. Lewis said. “Quite frankly I think you treated the taxpayers like they were trash,” she said.
Travis Linderman, speaking on behalf of the Borough Merchants for Princeton, said the borough merchants executive board had discussed Phase 2 at length, voted on whether to support it, “and we want you to move forward on it.”
Mr. Linderman said the merchants association believes the completion of the project will benefit downtown in economic terms as well as beautify the Tulane Street area. “We definitely want you to go forward with this process,” he said.
Sheldon Sturges, managing director of Princeton Future, said his organization also backed proceeding with the project. “We do believe in the plan,” he said.
Princeton Future was “very much involved” with developing and implementing the redevelopment plan, facilitating community discussions and seeing that Phase 2 of the plan incorporated amenities which were beneficial to the Princeton community, including a grocery store and affordable housing, Mr. Sturges said.
Moving to the issue of the structural health of the parking garage, which suffered serious leaking and flooding in its first years, Kevin Carrigan, director of engineering at Timothy Haahs & Associates of Blue Bell, Pa., which is working for the borough, told the council that although the major problem of the shifting basement slab — underdesigned and unable to withstand the hydrostatic water pressure at the sunken site from the start — had been addressed through a series of tie-downs, and major leaks had been plugged and were an event of the past, that the garage would continue to experience leaking and need monitoring and repair for the rest of its usable life.
Mr. Carrigan told council that the ongoing leaking showed that a waterproofing membrane originally installed below the slab was not working. “The waterproofing layer wasn’t working from the start,” and cannot be repaired, he said.
Mr. Goldfarb expressed surprise that this had not come to light. “That’s a defect in the garage,” he said. “We were never told the repair would not result in a garage as good” as one constructed correctly in the first place, he said.
Mr. Carrigan said he and Nassau HKT’s engineer disagree over what the ultimate effect of initial rising and falling water levels on the garage’s structural integrity will be.
”I was concerned with the water rising and falling and corroding the (steel bar) reinforcing” in the concrete structure, he said. Whether there is actual corroding and whether it will shorten the garage’s useful life, “needs to be studied over time,” he said.
Councilman Roger Martindell said one of the “astounding” aspects of borough discussions with Nassau HKT was that the borough was being asked to give a credit of $400,000 for the further work on the garage slab because it is being told the slab is now strengthened to a degree, and at an expense, never contemplated in the original agreement.
”The fact is it’s not as good as if it would have been designed correctly in the first place,” Mr. Goldfarb said.
