Christie team files motion for office building project
TRENTON » Republican Gov. Chris Christie is determined to leave office as a builder-in-chief.
In his final days on the job, Christie through his legal team has asked the Mercer County Superior Court Chancery Division to allow his $233 million state office construction project to proceed as planned.
Two hard-charging Democratic Assemblymen, Reed Gusciora of Trenton and John Wisniewski of Middlesex County, have sued the governor in recent days in hopes of putting the kibosh on Christie’s building plans.
Christie wants to tear down two state buildings in Trenton and replace them with new structures outside of the city’s transit or economic development hubs. The new buildings would house the state Department of Health and Division of Taxation, and hundreds of state employees would work inside the new digs under Christie’s vision.
Gusciora said he supports construction but opposes Christie’s plan, because Christie’s plan would build two large facilities in remote parts of the city. Gusciora and other opponents of the project say Christie’s plan would neither promote mixed-use development nor urban revitalization. They urge state officials to slow down, go back to the drawing board and to assess the impact of construction.
Opponents further say the state should work on the planning and development of strategically located buildings that would fuel economic growth and prosperity and reflect the input and support of Trenton residents.
Christie has pursued his construction plan through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, also known as the EDA, which on Dec. 12 approved the issuance of over $200 million of bonds to construct new buildings and tear down the old ones. The EDA intends to sell the bonds on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018.
Gusciora, Wisniewski and other plaintiffs, such as former Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer, have filed a lawsuit against Christie and the EDA over the construction plan. Their complaints say the EDA’s bond issue is illegal, and they have asked the Superior Court to grant an injunction that would effectively put a stop to the project by halting the planned bond sale pending a prolonged court battle on the merits. In a legal response dated Dec. 29, New Jersey Assistant Attorney General Melissa Dutton Schaffer, who represents Christie and the other defendants in the lawsuit, has asked the Superior Court to deny the “temporary restraints” that the plaintiffs are seeking and to summarily dismiss their complaints. The EDA since its inception in 1974 “has been empowered to sell bonds to finance construction projects secured by lease agreements whereby tenants pay rent to the EDA in the amount of the amortized debt service on the bonds,” Schaffer said in her brief. Christie’s legal team also accuses the plaintiffs of filing a lawsuit in the wrong venue, saying any challenge to EDA bond issues must be brought to the state’s Appellate Division, not Superior Court. “If the Court remarkably finds it has jurisdiction to hear Plaintiffs’ application, then it must speedily dispose of this litigation,” Christie’s lawyer said in her oppositional brief before the Mercer County Superior Court Chancery Division. “The Proposed Bonds have received all necessary approvals and are on the cusp of sale. Plaintiffs’ meritless legal theories cannot be allowed to disrupt State business while this case lingers. To delay a decision on this motion would reward and encourage those disgruntled by the outcome of political decision-making to file baseless suits simply to obstruct important public projects reliant on funding from the Proposed Bonds.”
In terms of the potential impact of the Christie-backed EDA construction plan, the state has not yet released an impact statement. The governor’s legal team, however, argues the state did not need to complete an impact study prior to the EDA issuing bonds for the project. An impact statement must be completed at any point prior to construction, according to Schaffer, Christie’s lawyer. Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2018, assuming the project is allowed to proceed without delay.
Documents obtained by The Trentonian show the EDA aims to construct new Health and Taxation buildings and related site improvements and to demolish the state’s existing Health and Agriculture buildings in the amount not to exceed $226.3 million, excluding certain capitalized interest and related costs. Capitalized interest, counsel fees and the bond underwriter’s discount adds about $7 million to the project costs, meaning the overall project would cost an estimated $233 million.
Trenton’s Department of Housing and Economic Development Director Diana Rogers, who serves at the pleasure of Mayor Eric Jackson, has given public comments expressing strong support for Christie’s building plan.
Christie’s legal team has seized on Rogers’ public comments, citing the minutes of an EDA meeting from earlier this year when Rogers said the Christie-backed project would be “a catalyst for investment in Trenton that supports the [City’s] vision for the downtown.”
If Christie has his way, the new Health and Taxation buildings would each be about 210,000 square feet, much larger than what initial development plans called for. The demolition of the existing Health and Agriculture buildings would pave the way for an interim parking lot to be developed at that location across from the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse off South Warren Street in Trenton.
The new Health building would be dedicated for state Department of Health employees. It is not clear where state Department of Agriculture employees will work if and when their current workplace gets razed.
The existing Taxation building at 50 Barrack St. could be demolished, rehabilitated or sold under the Christie-backed EDA plan. If that plan is allowed to commence, the new Taxation building would be located along John Fitch Way immediately north of the state’s Labor building and the new Health building would be located at North Willow and West Hanover streets.