Hamilton Mayor envisions hotel in redeveloped site of Congoleum >>
HAMILTON » A former industrial site contaminated by Congoleum Corp. could soon blossom into a commercial district anchored by a hotel and convention center.
Marty Flynn, director of the Hamilton Township Department of Technology and Economic Development, said the former Congoleum site at 861 Sloan Ave. is mostly cleaned up, saying the property is “well on its way to final remediation.”
A new developer bought the industrial manufacturing plant for $3.3 million in December 2015, promising to remediate the decades of contamination that Congoleum left behind and to redevelop the area across from the Hamilton Train Station into a productive haven of enterprise and commerce.
Commercial Development Company Inc., a St. Louisbased private firm also known as CDC and Manchester 270 Development LLC, last year demolished the former industrial compound, but cleanup operations remain ongoing at the 65.7-acre property.
“The days of the decaying Congoleum Corp. have ended due to the current revitalization and the cleanup that the owner CDC is currently doing here,” Mayor Kelly Yaede said in her 2018 State of the Township address on Feb. 15. “And just this week, ladies and gentlemen, we have given approval to the new QuickChek, which will be opposite of Congoleum.”
The Hamilton Township Zoning Board of Adjustment on Feb. 13 approved QuickChek Corp.’s application to construct a 5,856-squarefoot convenience store and an 18,346-square-foot retail building with fuel sales on the 700 block of Sloan Avenue.
Yaede announced Hamilton will get a fourth hotel and that a developer has recently expressed interest in building a fifth hotel here. After delivering her 2018 State of the Township address, Yaede told The Trentonian she would like to see a new hotel get built on the former Congoleum site.
The industrial site served as Congoleum’s resilient floorcovering manufacturing plant for decades and became infamous for its well-documented emissions of nitrogen oxide, a family of poisonous, highly reactive gases that form when fuel is burned at high temperatures, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Congoleum shuttered the Sloan Avenue plant in 2014, affecting 65 employees, according to a public notice. Deed records show CDC bought the property in December 2015 for $3.3 million.
The township originally expected CDC to complete the environmental cleanup by the end of 2017. The expectations have not been met. “They are on their timeframe,” Flynn said of CDC, adding the company is close to completing the site remediation.
The Trentonian reached out to CDC for comment on Wednesday, but the company said it would prefer to provide a detailed project overview “in a week or so.”
After the site is cleaned up, the 65.7-acre parcel of land could become the potential home for a hotel-convention center, retail space and corporate offices, according to an April 2017 Hamilton Township rating agency presentation.
CDC has previously been vague on what it intends to do with the property once remediation is complete.
“We seek to acquire sites where we see the most potential for growth and improvement — and the Congoleum site in Hamilton fits that criteria,” CDC spokesman John Kowalik said in January 2016 via email. “Our market analysis shows big upside for the Trenton market and significant potential for new development at this site in particular. CDC’s involvement is the first step toward bringing this distressed site back to productivity. We expect to see direct benefits for Hamilton — environmental and economic.”
Congoleum for decades had manufactured resilient floor tiles and planks at the Sloan Avenue facility. The plant’s industrial activities directly caused the environment to become contaminated, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP’s Site Remediation Program in April 2012 listed the Congoleum property as an active site with confirmed contamination.
When Congoleum operated at the site, the flooring manufacturer produced nitrogen oxide or NOx emissions, according to state data. In 2007, Congoleum’s poisonous NOx emissions were 2.61 tons per year, according to state data that had projected Congoleum would have reduced those emissions to 2.32 tons per year by the year 2025 if Congoleum had continued to operate at the site.
The property in 2014 had an assessed value of $8.4 million. With the building getting demolished, the township in 2017 assessed the property’s value to be about $3.4 million, according to public records, which show CDC in 2016 paid more than $147,000 in property taxes.
If the property is redeveloped into maximized economic productivity, its assessed value will surely skyrocket, which would result in the township collecting significantly more tax revenue from CDC.