Eatontown Resumes Talk Of Building A New Town Hall, But Not All Residents In Favor Of It

EATONTOWN, NJ — The town of Eatontown continues to discuss building a new borough hall, but not everyone in town, or on the town Council, supports the idea.

Councilwoman Maria Escalante told Patch Friday she has serious concerns about how much it will cost to build a new town hall, especially at a time when she says Eatontown also needs a new firehouse and a new DPW building.

While the town has not presented any formal plans, the idea right now is to build a new town hall immediately behind the existing one, in the current parking lot, she said. The existing town hall would be demolished. Current Eatontown borough hall is about 25,000 square feet and the new town hall would be more than double that size, at a proposed 60,000 square feet.

The current Eatontown borough hall is 60 years old; it was built in 1966.

The idea to build a new town hall was discussed for a long time at the Jan. 14 town council meeting. At that meeting, Mayor Anthony Talerico said a few years ago the town asked several architecture firms to review the current borough hall and give their advice on whether the town should renovate it or build new.

One of those firms, Parallel Architecture, gave a presentation Jan. 14. Anthony Scalise of Parallel Architecture said his firm determined that building a new town hall would be more efficient and cheaper than renovating.

"There were a lot of grossly inefficient layouts, for example how the police function," said Scalise, of his tours of town hall. "There were many departments that were really tight, in need of storage. It just seemed like the building was too small ... The fundamental flow of the building does not work correctly, specifically with the police."

He said the existing town hall would need to be "stripped to its bones," and need to be brought up to code. For example, there are no sprinklers in the building.

"It is just more practical for ADA accessibility and infrastructure to create a detached (new) building," said Scalise.

The new borough hall would house the Eatontown Police Department, and would have a gym that could be used by Eatontown Police. Also, some want to build a gun-shooting range in the new town hall basement, to be used by police only.

Escalante was the only member of the Eatontown council who raised objections.

"We are being told it's going to cost somewhere between 30 to 40 million to build new," Escalanate told Patch Friday. "We on the council were told we would use a portion of the Netflix PILOT to pay for it, and bond for the rest. I have a huge issue with that. I have a huge issue with all the bonding we do," saying she's worried the town is asking Eatontown residents to take on too much debt.

She's referring to a PILOT deal Eatontown made with Netflix, where Netflix would pay the town $47 million in lieu of taxes, with the $47 million arriving in 2027. That PILOT was controversial to some in Eatontown.

"We are dying here with taxes. Residents are very concerned about what this new town hall will cost them," Escalante continued. "Residents do want a new borough building, but they don't understand why we can't fix the current building. And they are extremely upset about a gun range in the basement. We don't need it. It's very expensive to build the range and you have to maintain it. Our police can use the county's range."

Council President Virginia East expressed support for a new town hall, and so did Councilwoman Candace Faust. East said borough employees are already working in spaces that are too small for them and it would not be good to put them in trailers while renovations were done. Faust mentioned the borough has been discussing a new municipal building for years.

"I am the only one on the Council that's asking a lot of hard questions and not just saying yes, yes yes to everything," said Escalante. "If we are gonna do something, I want to do it right for the residents. A new town hall will benefit town employees and our police, who I very much support. But most of our police and town employees do not live in town and don't pay taxes. How do we justify this to the residents? All I want do is make sure we don't overspend and keep the taxpayers in mind when we do all this."

Last year the entire Council, including Escalante, voted to spend more than $1.2 million on architecture and engineering studies related to the design of a new municipal building, pointed out Mayor Talerico.

"Eatontown has been talking about the need for a new town hall for the past 20 years, and the idea has always died for political reasons," Talerico said Friday. "I was immensely proud I brought all six Council people together last year for a bi-partisan vote on this."

Talerico said Eatontown needs a new town hall "in some shape or form."

Escalante is a Republican running for mayor this year in Eatontown. The election will be in November.