Field narrows for Ford site developer
Company says plan
to demolish plant in the works
BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer

The future of Ford’s shuttered, Route 1 manufacturing site may look radically different from its past.

Last week, Edison and Ford officials confirmed that several developers are interested in the property but declined to identify them. The plant, which closed its doors in February, was home to about 800 hourly and 100 salaried workers and was an anchor in the local economy since 1948.

With the field of potential buyers/developers narrowed to three, Mayor George A. Spadoro’s vision for the site is a far cry from what it was in its heyday. But, as the mayor sees it, a new, more prolific day is coming for the 102-acre site.

The site, which is assessed at $48 million, paid approximately $1.8 million in taxes to the township annually.

Spadoro declined to discuss the potential buyers and called speculation about the property "rumors that I’m not going to comment on until Ford does. I will only say that there are three finalists, but I will not say who they are."

Ford spokesperson Angie Kozleski, from the company’s Michigan-based Ford Motor Land Development Corp., said the company is talking to "a potential purchaser," and there are plans to raze the plant soon.

The township hired planning consultant RTKL, Maryland, to coordinate efforts with Ford and any potential buyer so the township would have a heavy hand in the redevelopment of the site, Spadoro said. RTKL’s fee was not disclosed.

The township’s revised master plan, which was adopted in August, designated the Ford site as a redevelopment area. Edison’s master plan, Spadoro said in his 2004 State of Edison speech, represents "the first major overhaul of the master plan in 13 years and will result in the most comprehensive visionary guide to land use planning in Edison’s history."

The plan highlights the potential redevelopment of several areas, the Ford site being considered one of the most integral and largest parcels in the planning document. It recommends mixed-use development for the property, including a "significant amount of open/recreation space." The plan also says that the overhaul of the Ford site "should include but not be limited to, commercial, retail, office, civic, office research and hotels."

According to municipal land use law, a master plan for any town is a document which recommends a planning vision and appropriate zoning to enforce that vision. The Planning Board adopts the master plan and a town’s governing body then must pass zoning ordinances to enact the recommendations in the plan.

No zoning ordinances have been passed yet to enforce Edison’s new master plan, township officials confirmed at the April 28 Township Council meeting.

With new zoning in place, the mayor said he sees the site as the new "Chelsea Piers of the area, like the one in New York City. This is why we hired the planning consultant to work with Ford. Ford’s people don’t have to do that. They can sell to whoever they want to. But if it were rezoned for mixed use, the property would be more valuable to the developer and us. It benefits both parties when we work together toward a vision."

If the developer and township’s development wishes are aligned, then the township will zone the property to suit the developer’s purpose, Spadoro added. He called the cooperative effort one that is in step with smart growth.

The taxes paid to the township should the site be rezoned for mixed use could nearly quadruple to $7.2 mil­lion, making the site’s owner the largest taxpayer in the township. Cur­rently, Heller Industrial Park runs a close second to the Ford site in tax rev­enue, the mayor said.

The three major redevelopment sites highlighted by the master plan, Spadoro said, are the Revlon site, the Ford site and what is referred to as Senior Village in the Clara Barton sec­tion of town.

Spadoro has said that he envisions the developer investing roughly $200 million in a mixed-use plan.