By Liz Sheehan |
SANDY HOOK – The National Park Service is negotiating with potential lessees for the first three of 32 available properties, in historic Fort Hancock. The residential buildings are located on Officers Row.
It marks the first time the NPS has entered into negotiations for the iconic buildings at the tip of Sandy Hook since 1999, when it granted a lease to a commercial developer. It was later canceled in 2009.
John Warren, external affairs officer at the Sandy Hook Unit in the Gateway National Recreation Area, where Fort Hancock is located, declined to offer specific details about the current negotiations.
Warren did say that the NPS is working to establish lease terms, which will be based on each buildings’ fair market value, condition and proposed use. The buildings are available for residential, nonprofit and commercial use.
“Each building has a different value per square foot,” he said. The value was determined by looking at other residential proper ties in the area, but he said there is nothing around quite like Officers Row, and its unique location.
“How do you put a price on that sunset?” Warren asked, referring to the unobstructed view of the sunset over Sandy Hook Bay from the buildings at Fort Hancock.
The requests for proposals are on a rolling basis. The park service will accept applications until all the buildings are leased or the park service decides to close the process, according to the park service’s website.
This is the second attempt by the park service to lease the deteriorating buildings, which it has said it does not have the funds to restore.
In 1999, a 60-year lease was given to James Wassel, Rumson, to restore and commercially develop more than 36 buildings at the fort. The plan was received with strong local opposition, and Save Sandy Hook, a grassroots group, was formed to oppose the project.
Save Sandy Hook and Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater filed suits unsuccessfully, to overturn the lease.
In 2009, Wassel’s lease was canceled after a series of extensions granted by the park service, when the developer could not prove he had the financial ability to complete the rehabilitation of the buildings.
In 2012, a notice was placed in the Federal Register that the Secretary of the Interior would select an advisory committee with the approval of the White House to work out plans for the future of the fort. The 23-member committee, called the Fort Hancock 21st Century Advisory Committee, includes Freeholder Lillian Burry, Middletown Mayor Stephanie Murray, Rumson Mayor John Ekdahl, Highlands Mayor Frank Nolan and George Conroy, representing Sea Bright.
After the committee meeting at the Fort Hancock chapel on Friday, Dec. 3, member Guy Hembling, the president of C.B. Hembling & Son, a construction company, estimated the cost of rehabilitating a residential building at the fort could cost $750,000 to $1 million. But he said costs could be higher since the work must conform to standards for historic properties.
He said that work he had done on the porch of one building “was double, if not triple” what would have been the ordinary cost because of the restrictions on historic renovation.
According to a website about the leasing process for Fort Hancock, lessees must pay for renovations and the proposed rent will be offset by that cost. An example is given with an initial investment of $2.5 million and an annual rent of $120,000 with an increase of three percent a year. In this case there would be no rent paid until 20 years into the lease.
The minimum lease is 20 years and the maximum, 60, the website said, and the lease can be passed to family members during its term, but are not renewable without competing with new applicants.
In addition to rent, tenants will pay Common Area Maintenance (CAM) charges which will cover but are not limited to fire and law protection, road maintenance, emergency medical ser vices, and basic grounds and mowing ser vices, the website said.
Warren said that the first five tenants will not be charged the CAM fees for the duration of their leases.
The payment of taxes is now being discussed with Middletown, Township, Warren said. But taxes should include only costs for education since other services will be provided by the park service, he said.
All but one of the 11 residential buildings proposed for the leasing process were originally lieutenants’ or captains’ quarters. Seven structures are designated for bed-and-breakfast/lodging, and 14 are designated as community/commercial.
NPS has indicated it anticipates a form of community commercial development such as “restaurants, groceries, and sundries at Fort Hancock.”
