FREEHOLD – A partnership of business owners and property owners in Freehold Borough is proposing a project to create a new Borough Hall on Broad Street and Court Street.
KFM Partnership, LLC, has created a concept plan to move Borough Hall from its existing location at 51 W. Main St. to Broad and Court streets. Members of the partnership, which is comprised of borough business owners and property owners Rob Kash, Jeff Friedman, Joe Mosco, George Dittmar and Michael Federici, presented a preliminary outline for the plans before the Borough Council on June 4.
“As a group, the five of us have over 100 years of experience doing business in Freehold Borough and over 50 years of service on the Board of Directors for the Freehold Center Management Corporation [doing business as Downtown Freehold],” Friedman told council members.
“We have all made substantial financial and personal investments and commitments in and to this community, we all share a common dedication to improving this community as a whole, and we all believe Freehold Borough’s best days are still ahead of us,” he said.
The proposed location for the new Borough Hall is a 0.75-acre property at 2, 4 and 6 Broad St., the southern side of that street, and the rear yard of 26 Court St., the western side of that street, according to Friedman.
Situated in the borough’s Historic District, Special Improvement District, Freehold Center Core Redevelopment Plan Area and Transit Village Study Area, the location at 2, 4 and 6 Broad St. is one-and-a-half blocks from the current Borough Hall and is presently occupied by four properties.
The four properties have been owned by KFM Partnership since 2015. Friedman said the buildings are not listed on national, state or county registers of historic properties, and he said KFM Partnership has received preliminary approval from the Historic Preservation Commission to demolish the structures.
“[In 2008], the subject properties were run down, overcrowded, and the rents for the office space were half of what I was charging just across the street, which in turn caused downward pressure for my rents,” Friedman said. “The biggest complaint I got from my own tenants was how bad the view was from out the window.
“While (the properties) are no longer overcrowded, they are still run down and continue to be sore thumbs surrounded by well-maintained properties. The buildings have, due to the previous owner’s neglect, lost the historic integrity, and the properties were and are underutilized,” he said.
According to Friedman, the concept to develop the southwest corner of Court and Broad streets came from a 2008 study about downtown revitalization that focused on the walking size of a downtown area that is needed to maintain a sense of destination (45 minutes walking/five square blocks) and on the necessity of having a built-in consumer base residing above the retail, commercial and office uses necessary to keep retail business thriving.
The original project proposed by KFM Partnership for the location was the Statesman, a four-story mixed use building with up to eight retail office units on the ground level and 32 apartments ranging from studio apartments to two-bedroom apartments, according to Friedman.
After the question of moving Borough Hall was raised when the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) presented a draft concept in late 2017 for a transit village around the borough’s bus station, which is next to Borough Hall, the members of the KFM Partnership began to consider using 2, 4 and 6 Broad St. for a new municipal building instead of an office-residential building.
Friedman told council members KFM Partnership was pursuing a new Borough Hall instead of the Statesman because a new municipal building would be more beneficial to the borough, and in turn, more beneficial to businesses and residents.
The partnership came to the conclusion, he said, that Freehold Borough could develop the new municipal building site in a way that would generate more revenue than it would cost to build or rent a new municipal building on another site that is less of an ideal location for a transit village.
“While we know over the long term [that] building the Statesman at the subject site would make us more money directly from the subject site than building a Borough Hall and renting to the borough at a fixed rate for a long term, we believe our other businesses, everyone’s businesses, and everyone’s taxes, including residents, would benefit more by moving Borough Hall to the corner of Court and Broad [streets] and opening up the most prime property around the bus station to be available to generate substantial revenue for the borough, which will reduce the tax burden for all borough taxpayers,” Friedman said.
“We believe moving Borough Hall is a win for our and all other businesses downtown because we will be removing a current blight from downtown and create a real opportunity for the borough to bring in a larger built-in consumer base to use local businesses, a win for the borough because the borough will get a new building which fits the borough’s current size and access needs at a lower opportunity cost, and a win for taxpayers because it will generate positive cash flow to the borough which can be used to cover other borough expenses,” he continued.
In an email to Mayor Nolan Higgins, Richard Ginn, co-chair of the Freehold Borough Vision Committee and owner of a building directly across from the proposed new municipal structure, voiced his support for the project.
“I believe the idea to move the borough offices to Court Street would be a wonderful improvement for the town,” Ginn wrote. “Beyond the upgrade to the offices, the town would also get the benefit of creating additional space for a developer that would come in to bid on the (NJTPA) plans proposed for the bus station.
“Although I also support the original plan for a mixed use building, this second proposal (for a new municipal building) makes a lot of sense,” he wrote. “From talking to my fellow committee members, I believe many of them agree.”
Kash emphasized that the concepts presented to the council for a new Borough Hall were preliminary and subject to change. He said the KFM Partnership is looking for feedback on the project before moving forward on its potential development.
Council members took no action following the presentation, but said they would continue to discuss the project with the members of the KFM Partnership.
