Brick Seeks Bids To Operate Marina, Build Restaurant At Traders Cove

When Mayor John Ducey took office at the beginning of 2014, on the list of goals he sought to accomplish was looking at township-owned properties and ensuring they are being used properly or go back on Brick Township’s tax rolls.

That review included Traders Cove, the property at the east end of Mantoloking Road that the township purchased in 2005 to protect it from being turned into a high-density residential development. Though the township has been operating it as a marina and park since 2013, township officials are looking to get more revenue out of the site, and voted last week to accept proposals for a private vendor to operate the marina and boat ramp, and for a vendor to build and operate a restaurant on the site.

“We’re paying a large debt service and we’re not going to break even, but we are doing what we can,” Ducey said.

The 11.5-acre site, purchased for $8 million in a deal that included the township, the county, state grant funding and $1 million from the environmental organization Save Barnegat Bay, has plenty of room for a restaurant and has Green Acres approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection to build one.

Scott Pezarras, the township’s chief financial officer, said the township is paying $1.155 million per year in debt service on $9.5 million in bonds issued to cover the $8 million purchase of Traders Cove and two other smaller parcels.

The township subdivided it and sold a portion to Ocean County for the county park that sits at the foot of the Mantoloking Bridge, for $1.5 million, Pezarras said. The Green Acres grant used to help pay for the property was for $3,407,123, he said.

Ducey said a number of companies have contacted the township about the possibility of a restaurant with a banquet facility at the site, where the Meteconk River flows into Barnegat Bay.

“We want a company to build a restaurant,” he said, adding the cost to do so has been estimated at $2 million. “We don’t want the taxpayer to pay for that.”

The bids for the outside vendor to operate the marina, Ducey said, are being sought in the hopes an outside vendor can run it more efficiently.

“We’re going to look and see and compare (bids) to our operating costs from last year,” he said.

The move to seek bids comes as forward momentum on the Foodtown site remains stagjnant. In September, township officials served the redeveloper, M&M Properties at Route 70, with a notice of default and announced the town’s intent to terminate the agreement. In late December M&M responded with a lawsuit seeking to block the termination, blaming the town for the lack of redevelopment progress at the site. Brick filed a countersuit in answer, Ducey said.

Town officials and M&M officials also have clashed on what type of development is viable, with M&M pushing for residential development, which Brick officials are flatly rejecting. They had been hoping for a hotel with a conference center at the site. And while the legal wrangling goes on, Brick continues to pay nearly $500,000 per year in debt service on the bonds used to purchase the property.