I personally see no problems with our town paying up to $50 Million for that property if it preserves our township and its present character. That only represents an average of about $9,000.00 per RT family. Is there anyone in this town not willing to pay that amount of money to protect their town and their investment in their homes? If cc moves in, each and every one of will loose a lot more than what 50 Megs can purchase. Besides, this property could be used for multiple municipal applications, not just a School. The buildings are in great shape.
It won't take $50 mil - it will take the current market value to obtain this property. The school board will make an offer - probably lowball - then negociate with Agilent from there.
Can Agilent drag deal out? Yes, but I would think they want out of this mess asap.
Can CC claim an end run around their offer and sue the town? You bet ya...anyone can sue anyone over just about anything these days. Would that suit have merit? Let's see - they do not own any property in Rockaway Township as of yet...pretty weak.
Let them sue. Worst case is that they win some damages. As was pointed out, we could probably get the property for less than 50 Megs (including all the improvements required). Use the rest of the money to "pay off Ireland" so to speak after he sues us. That's all he wants anyway - - - $$$$$$$$$. Glad to pay it to keep the circus out of town.
I'm not sure that a school on the Agilent property would cost any more than the other alternatives. Offsets to the purchase price, possibly the present value of $14 million in several years, would be:
1. the differential between the cost of renovating vs. building new,
2. the excess of state reimbursement at 40% for renovating vs. only 25% for building new, and,
3. the cost of acquiring the Mt. Hope ave property (if that is the alternative.).
Also the fact that absent acquiring the Agilent property by the town, $630,000 in annual revenues may be lost anyway whereas not acquiring the Mt. Hope property would keep it and any future improvements generating tax revenues for the town.
It would be interesting to see the calculations when the "run the numbers" but I do agree that even it Agilent costs somewhat more it is well worth it from the standpoint of future expansion alone.
quote: Originally posted by: Craig Maier "Let them sue. Worst case is that they win some damages. ...."
Worst case would be they win the right to put their church there, and RT is ordered to tear down the school, pay for restoring the propety to the original condition, and CC is awarded a huge (excessive ) damage awards.
Yep Craig, I see where that "genius" label fits you perfectly. NOT!
The so called "worst case" is that the entire state of NJ is awarded to the Ireland country club. It's possible, but not too probable. Get real, moron. Your scenario has about as much probability of occuring as terrorists detonating a nuke somewhere in our township. I hope that you are not loosing too much sleep about it. Just to amplify, even if total costs hit 100 million to fight these bastards, that only represents about $20,000.00 per family. Marla and I have already lost about $200,000.00 in property value because of this cc monstrosity. When was the last time that you checked out your real estate property values, genius? Before you shoot your mouth off again, call a few real estate agents first and have some real data to use in your arguments.
quote: Originally posted by: Craig Maier "... Just to amplify, even if total costs hit 100 million to fight these bastards, that only represents about $20,000.00 per family. Marla and I have already lost about $200,000.00 in property value because of this cc monstrosity. ...."
Lost $200k? Really? According to you and all your really smart buddies here, the church has no chance of getting into RT, right? So if that is true, why would your property value go down at all?
But go ahead and post your "before and after" appraisals anyway so we can do the math ourselves, OK?
And I guess $20k per familiy sounds OK to you, but maybe the rest of the RT residents aren't quite so willing to gamble away their hard earned cash.
Anyone interested in seeing our before and after appraisals from numerous real estate agencies are welcome to do so. These documents are THICK. Not easily scanned and posted. One of them is about 50 pages thick. But you can come over and see them for yourselves. Call first at
973-316-5772
If you do not take us up on this, just keep your ****ing mouth shut 'cause you have no clue as to what you are talking about when it comes to RT real estate values.
