Jones Lang LaSalle

Plans narrowed for municipal site
Bridgewater officials now have three plans to choose from for new municipal complex.
By KARA L. RICHARDSON
Staff Writer

BRIDGEWATER -- One element of the updated municipal complex proposals seemed to be the overwhelming winner with the Township Council on Thursday -- keep the existing Town Hall.
USA Architects, the Somerville firm hired nearly a year ago to redesign the complex, presented three possible conceptual site plans for the Garretson Road and Commons Way campus.

The first two plans, each with a price tag of about $21 million, preserve the 70-year-old Garretson Road municipal building, formerly the Green Knoll School, and proposed new police, court and meeting facilities built around it.

The third plan starts from scratch with a new municipal building and public safety facility. Its estimated total cost was about $22.6 million.

Councilman Michael Hsing wondered why saving the building wouldn't save more money.
USA Architects partner Mark Coan explained it is because the township staff would have to work in temporary trailers during much of the construction, which was estimated to take about 18 months. He said it may be nine months before any construction could begin.

Council President Allen Kurdyla asked his fellow council members to take a week to collect their comments so that he could forward them to USA Architects.

The three designs were boiled down from the seven plans presented to the public in September, Coan said. He said his firm considered more than 100 comments from e-mails and questionnaires about those proposals.

Members of the Friends of Somerset Regional Animal Shelter lobbied to keep their facility on the property. All three proposals Thursday included an animal shelter next to a wooded area on the site.

"We were very pleased," said Kathy Healey, president of the Friends of Somerset Regional Animal Shelter. However, she acknowledged there is still a discussion for several municipalities -- including Bridgewater, Manville and Somerville -- to combine their animal shelters into one larger facility, possibly elsewhere. She said the next meeting on that issue is March 28.

In all three municipal complex plans, the police department and the department of public works buildings would be razed. Other elements on the plans included: playing fields, a retention basin and keeping the existing Kids Street play area.

The township has been considering a new municipal complex since 1988 when former Mayor James Dowden appointed a five-member Municipal Facilities Advisory Committee. Significant progress started two years ago when the township made a three-way land swap deal with the county that will eventually move the public works garage to a new public works facility shared with the county and Bound Brook at the Stavola Quarry off Chimney Rock Road.

Most involved in the project agree the township's police station is in the most dire need of replacement. Town Hall has become overcrowded and outdated. The township has grown tremendously since the building was renovated in the 1970s.

Kara L. Richardson can be reached at (908) 707-3186 or krichard@c-n.com.