Shore Companies Inquiring About Restaurant At Traders Cove, Mayor Says

If you offer it, will they come build?

Brick Township officials say the answer, when it comes to proposals for a restaurant at Traders Cove, is yes.

With the request for proposals formally posted on the township’s website, it’s now just a matter of seeing who follows through and bids on the project, township officials said at the council meeting Tuesday night.

Mayor John G. Ducey said the town has received inquiries from the operators of Harpoon Willy’s, the River Rock Restaurant and Tim McLoone’s Supper Club, among others, about the plan, which Ducey first proposed in January.

The township has been operating Traders Cove as a marina and park since 2013, but township officials are looking to get more revenue out of the site to pay down nearly $22 million in debt incurred to purchase and develop the park. The township pays $1.155 million per year on the bonds, Scott Pezarras, the township’s chief financial officer, has said.

The Township Council gave the go-ahead in March for the town to accept proposals to build and operate a restaurant at the site, and the request for proposals was posted recently.

The idea has met with oppostion, particularly from the group Save Barnegat Bay, which contends the plan to build a restaurant violates the spirit of the agreement that Traders Cove was purchased under, which Willie deCamp, president of the group, said was to maintain the natural environment and protect the area from development.

The group sent a letter to Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin asking Martin to ensure the Green Acres Program rejects the township’s request to build a restaurant.

“Save Barnegat Bay has always been sympathetic to the fact that Brick Township is running what is essentially a regional park,” the group wrote. “Traders Cove should remain the beautiful and peaceful waterfront park that it was intended to be. It should not be transformed or diminshed by the creation of a commercial profit center.”

Brick Township Administrator Joanne Bergin said in May the township consulted with Green Acres officials to ensure it was following all of the rules and procedures before putting the RFP information out for bids.

“We did send them the restaurant RFP in advance so they could review that to ensure it included information on the site as being ’encumbered parkland,’ which they did,“ Bergin said. “We held off issuing the RFP until the program reviewed it and provided comment.”

The RFP notice on the township’s website says the area for development and lease is about 3,970 square feet, and subject to “the Coastal Area Facility Review Act Permit modified on February 27, 2015, the restrictions of the New Jersey Green Acres and a Trader’s Cove Redevelopment Plan” adopted in November 2007. It also specifies the area will be leased for 24 years.

“We need to generate revenue to pay down a $22 million debt service,” Councilwoman Susan Lydecker said Tuesday night. ”This project will be at no cost to taxpayers. We are not paying to build a restaurant ... but we will be taking a good deal of oversight.”

“There are a lot of people who don’t fish, who don’t jetski, who don’t like being in the sun, who still want to enjoy the waterfront,” Ducey said.

The 11.5-acre site was purchased for $8 million in a deal that included the township, the county, state grant funding and $1 million from Save Barnegat Bay. It was developed as a marina and park that opened in May 2013.

The 2014 revenue from the marina and boat ramp at Traders Cove was $221,881.83, officials said. The township also is looking for an outside contractor to operate the marina instead of using township employees for that purpose.

Proposals are being accepted until 2 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, Sept. 1, according to the RFP.