Consultant to Review Redevelopment Plan ; Emerson Hires Firm to ‘Run the Numbers’

By ASHLEY KINDERGAN, STAFF WRITER

EMERSON – The borough is hiring a national consulting firm to give financial advice on a downtown redevelopment effort.

The council voted unanimously to hire Basile Baumann Prost Cole & Associates Inc., based in Annapolis, Md., to analyze the estimated costs and returns on investment provided by the borough’s redeveloper, Millennium Homes Inc.

Mayor Louis Lamatina said Millennium has outlined what the company thinks it will need to spend to buy property in a 19-acre area of downtown. Its report also estimates how many housing and retail units the developer must build to make money on the project.

“We know we need someone with a financial background to run the numbers,” Lamatina said. “It’s to give us tools to say to a developer, ‘You’re dealing with a sophisticated borough.’ “

Lamatina would not say whether the borough needs a financial consultant because Millennium has proposed a more extensive project than expected. The original redevelopment plan, which is being revised by the borough planner, called for mixed-use buildings with about 300 housing units.

A dispute about the number of housing units needed to make the redevelopment financially feasible led to the resignation last year of another developer, The Atkins Cos.

Basile Baumann Prost Cole & Associates works on projects around the country and is advising the borough of Long Branch on its redevelopment project.

Officials at the company did not return calls on Monday.

The contract, which the company has not yet signed, provides for up to $9,000 to analyze the Millennium documents, said Borough Administrator Joseph Scarpa. The payment is expected to come out of money that Millennium put in escrow.

Last month, the council voted to appoint Joseph Sanzari, a prominent county contractor, as an unpaid consultant on the project. At that time, Lamatina and others said Sanzari’s role would be as a liaison between the borough, the developer and the various county and state agencies.

Borough officials say Sanzari will still act as a liaison and adviser, but that the Maryland firm will do the financial analysis.

“We never intended to rely upon him to put a pen to paper to start crunching numbers for us,” Lamatina said.

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E-mail: kindergan@northjersey.com

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