COLTS NECK – The Colts Neck Township Committee has announced plans to construct a new municipal building that will house the police department, a large public meeting room and administrative departments.
The new building will total about 16,000 square feet and will be constructed on the site of the current police/municipal court building in the Colts Neck municipal complex at 124 Cedar Drive. The existing building will be demolished.
Officials said the Colts Neck Police Department will occupy most of the first floor of the new building.
The second floor will feature a large public meeting room that will be used to hold Township Committee meetings, various commission meetings and other public meetings, and the municipal court. Colts Neck’s finance and administrative offices will be housed on the second floor.
“We are pleased and proud to share our formal plans for this exciting project
with all Colts Neck residents,” Mayor Frank Rizzuto said. “After five years of evaluation
and planning, the time has come to replace our aging, substandard police/municipal
court building, parts of which date back to the early 1960s, with a new building that will
serve the needs of Colts Neck residents, both now and in the future.”
Township Administrator Kathleen Capristo said design flaws and persistent water infiltration have contributed to structural issues and other problems in the police/municipal court building.
Bids for the construction of the new building will be solicited by or before May 1. The bids that are received will be evaluated and a contract is expected to be awarded by the end of August, according to municipal officials.
Construction of the new building is expected to begin in October, with a target date for completion around January 2022.
The new municipal building is projected to cost about $12.5 million, which includes necessary and required site work and systems. The overall cost projection will be finalized during the bidding process, according to Colts Neck officials.
Based on current financial variables and based on the assessed value of $800,000 of an average home in Colts Neck, the tax impact for residents from this project is expected to be between $40 to $89 annually, or between $3.34 and $7.42 per month, according to municipal officials.
“Today, Colts Neck has the fifth lowest municipal tax rate out of 53 municipalities in Monmouth County,” Rizzuto said. “As elected officials and as fellow taxpayers and residents of Colts Neck, one of our most important obligations is managing and investing taxpayer dollars wisely.
“We take this responsibility very seriously, especially as we undertake this important project on behalf of the township. And yet, we have a responsibility to make capital improvements, like this new building, which are absolutely essential for effective and efficient township operations,” the mayor said.
The township has retained Eli Goldstein of the Goldstein Partnership, Maplewood, as the architect for the project.
