The North Bergen Board of Education is looking into the possibility of purchasing a 35-acre property on West Side Avenue and 83rd Street, below Tonnelle Avenue, as a site to construct a new high school.
According to Superintendent of Schools Peter Fischbach, preliminary talks have taken place regarding purchasing property currently owned by Samson Realty Group of Bayonne. The site, currently an industrial commercial area that houses a trucking terminal and a clothing distribution outlet, would have to be purchased by the Board of Education.
“We’re making a preliminary run on that section of land,” Fischbach said. “It’s one of the few areas available to build a new high school. It meets the size requirements that we would need to build a new high school and subsequent supportive services, like athletic fields. Because of that, we need a larger section of land to build.” For years, both the township administration and the Board of Education have been extremely leery about building a new school facility on the western side of the township, for fear of the students having to cross Tonnelle Avenue to get to school.
Tonnelle Avenue, also known as New Jersey State Highway 1 & 9, is easily the most heavily used state highway in northern New Jersey and has a heavy truck traffic volume.
“As of right now, the site would necessitate that 100 percent of the students would require some form of transportation to get to school,” Fischbach said. “With the location being so remote, busing would be mandated.” However, the site on 83rd Street and West Side Avenue is an ideal location for the town, because an additional 25 acres of adjacent land – 20 of which are of the wetland variety and the other five are upland and possible for development – is already owned by the township. That means that no further property would have to be purchased, other than the 35 acres owned by Samson.
Already, a group of engineers, MDS Associates, has examined the site for possible electromagnetic fields from nearby overhead high-tension wiring. Those tests came up negative, showing little or no exposure to radiation. If the township hopes to develop the wetlands portion of land, it would need permission from both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as permission from the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, which also has jurisdiction over preserving the wetlands.
Tests also have to be conducted to see if the site would pass Environmental Protection Agency safety guidelines, to see if the site is safe to build a school facility.
“That’s why everything has to be considered preliminary at best,” Fischbach said. “Right now, it’s the best possible solution to our overcrowding problem.”
A year ago, the Board of Education introduced a plan that would have seen a new $65 million high school being constructed within the confines of the northern end of North Hudson Braddock Park, but the plan was scrapped after there was public opposition to the plan.
Since then, the Board of Education has examined other possible sites for a high school development, trying to stay away from crossing Tonnelle Avenue. But many of the proposed ideas called for purchasing existing homes from residents and forcing them to relocate.
Such a plan was instituted to construct an extension to Lincoln School, on 64th and Durham, where the Board of Education purchased nine homes. Those homes will be razed shortly to build the extension. A new high school would call for a lot more property to be purchased.
“This represents the best of the areas that are out there,” Fischbach said. “It also carries the least amount of inconvenience to the citizens in terms of relocation.”
But the township really has no other choice. With the addition of a four-year-old pre-kindergarten program set to begin in September and the district’s seven grammar schools already way beyond capacity levels, the Board of Education desperately needs to address the overcrowding issue.
“The overcrowding problem gets bigger every day,” Fischbach said. “Our senior class this year has 600 students. Our freshman class has 700. Each eighth grade class has over 140. And we’re adding the 4-year-olds. We have to get something done as quickly as possible.”
Without question, the new proposed plan is more costly than the initial $65 million proposal that featured the use of North Hudson Braddock Park. For one, the Board of Education will have to purchase the site. Samson bought the site for $7.4 million nearly three years ago. The price tag should remain comparable, especially since it is known that the Board of Education is extremely interested.
“It currently has industrial use,” said Joseph Auriemma, the township administrator who also heads the HMDC. “I don’t know right now if the cost of the property would increase drastically. We still have to find out if there are any environmental issues to deal with. Everything hinges on what the environmental studies say.”
Not to mention, there will be the massive cleanup costs, as well as construction costs and the transportation costs to factor into the proposal, which means that the cost of the entire project could reach as high as $100 million. Funding for such a project remains a gigantic question. The Board of Education has always pledged that they will search far and wide for any or all state, federal and local aid. But in reality, building a new high school could result in a tax increase sometime in the future.
“We’re estimating in the $85 million range right now,” Fischbach said. “That’s the way we see it, even with the incidentals. If we purchase that site, there is a building there that could be used. Again, this is all preliminary. It has many possibilities.”
Although he remains very optimistic that this plan will go through with little or no glitches, Fischbach knows that the project is years away from reaching fruition.
“I suspect that the planning alone will take several years, like three years or so,” Fischbach said. “It will take about two years to examine the site and another year to find the funding source. Then, it would take another three or four years of building and that’s if the weather cooperates. It’s going to be a long process.
Added Fischbach, “But I really believe it could be a practical site and it’s the best that we have right now. As years go on, you’re going to see more development along West Side Avenue, especially with the [Hudson-Bergen] Light Rail coming that way. So I definitely can see it happening. From my standpoint, it has to happen.” Auriemma, who closely monitors all development in the township, agreed.
“At this juncture, it’s the site we’re looking at and it’s the site that makes the most about of sense as to build a new high school,” Auriemma said. “Whether it can be done has yet to be determined. We’re going to look at all avenues to see if it’s feasible.”