Builder - December 2008 - (Page 23) INSIDE STORY COMMEN TA RY A ND A N A LYSIS OF CUR R EN T E V EN T S ■ Inside: 24 26 Feeling the Pinch Declining housing-related fees force Riverside, Calif., to reduce community funding Flood Control Sacramento area builders confront FEMA-imposed building delay PLUS MORE > > EDITED BY JOHN CAULFIELD POLITICS OF REDEVELOPMENT Fool’s Gold? Toll Brothers moves forward cautiously on a dicey New Jersey project. 32-acre plot known locally as the Golden Triangle is slated to be transformed into Cornerstone at East Brunswick, a transit-centric mixed-use community in central New Jersey that, as planned, would include 402 condos. According to local sources, prices would start in the $350,000 range. The redevelopment plan, though, has been a political football for decades, most recently during the township’s mayoral race, whose victor has occasionally expressed reservations about it in the past. Toll Brothers, which owns the site, declines to discuss Cornerstone’s timetable. A “It’s an extremely complex project with many different moving parts, but at this time we have no comment,” Kira McCarron, the builder’s vice president of marketing, told Builder a few days before the mayoral election on Nov. 4. The current dismal state of the housing market lurks behind any decision to move forward, but Toll has negotiated a deal that conceivably could make money for the company even if it walks away. CHANGE IN PLANS East Brunswick, a bedroom community of around 50,000 people, has been pondering what to do with the Golden Triangle since the late 1970s, well before 2005 when Toll agreed to pay $35.4 million to purchase the land from the township. The parcel is sandwiched between a highway and a service road, with strip malls to its right and left and across the highway, and a sprawling industrial park to its rear. The site includes a bus terminal for township residents who commute into New York and Jersey City. There’s a 300-acre landfi ll a half mile to the north. Bill Neary, who decided not to seek reelection after 12 years as mayor, recalled (see page 24) that the township matt wood W W W.BUILDERONLINE.COM de c e m ber 2 0 08 BUILDER ■ 23 http://WWW.BUILDERONLINE.COM
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