By Chris Neidenberg / Reporter
EAST RUTHERFORD (Nov. 26, 2009) — In the works for roughly two years, a contractor recently broke ground on a new 44-space municipal parking lot off Park Avenue in East Rutherford, designed to attract shoppers and promote future business development, according to Mayor James Cassella.
On Sept. 15, the council awarded a $497,423 bid to Navka Construction Co. Inc., of Newark, for the project.
Including costs of the original land acquisition, demolition and bid for lot construction, taxpayers, from different sources, can expect to pay in excess of $2 million to make it happen. In terms of saving municipal taxes, at least for construction, $26,300 will be provided from a New Jersey Meadowlands Commission Downtown Program grant.
Cassella noted that the old Park City Grill site, formerly housed at 125-127 Park Ave. near the Paterson Avenue intersection, will become a paved, off-street parking site. It will contain 42 regular and two handicapped spaces.
The mayor said the site will offer ingress and egress to the rear, at Boiling Springs Avenue, and “a small paved foot path” leading out to Park.
He added the site will be fenced and landscaped, with “some green space.” In fact, according to the contract’s summary of work, this locale will also have a bocce court, some (commemorative) plaques and handicap-accessible ramps.
Further, project specifications require installing lighting, “ornamental metal works,” storm sewers, an underground detention basin, as well as circuitry and underground conduits to supply electricity, and various other activities, including masonry work and utility pole relocation.
“If the weather holds throughout the winter, I’m optimistic we can get this site up and running in a couple of months,” Cassella said.
Under terms, Navka must finish the job within 150 days of the contract’s execution. Since the groundbreaking, workers have been busy converting the former building’s foundation into its new use.
“The area had businesses in East Rutherford before there were even cars,” said the mayor. “Now we want to make it easier for people who have cars to do business with our local merchants.”
In an e-mail, John Giancaspro, executive assistant to the mayor and council, wrote that enforcing time constraints is still a policy call the council must iron out. The borough has no metered parking.
“Planned enforcement and constraints have been discussed preliminarily,” he wrote, “but nothing is finalized. Before the facility is completed and opened to the public, it is likely the council will adopt an ordinance regulating the use of the facility and any constraints.”
Elected officials have already complained that New York-bound bus and train commuters, from other communities, gobble up on-street parking. On parts of Union Avenue, near the Rutherford Train Station, it imposed restrictions last year aimed at curbing this practice.
Cassella assured the location was carefully thought out, once the municipality bought property from the owners of the former bar and restaurant tract for roughly $1.4 million. Workers cleaned out the former building in late 2007; it was demolished for $112,500 early in the spring of 2008.
Borough officials had complained the former business, a popular night spot, was a constant source of complaints and noise, which will be eliminated with the new use.
At the borough council’s Nov. 16 meeting, the mayor even opposed granting the former site’s owners a “pocket,” or inactive, liquor license, which state law lets them continue holding for possible transfer, even though the business has essentially disappeared.
The council unanimously extended the non-operational license for a year. This, after Borough Attorney Richard Allen advised not doing so could expose it to potential “aggressive litigation” in the interim. Allen said officials could still block reactivating the license in the future.
