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The building was beautiful although it had fallen into disrepair. Mostly cats and some homeless used it. It sucked that they knocked it down but I guess no developers wanted to touch trying to preserve it. I guess the city didn't want to either. I took some of the bricks for use around our garden.

Sorry, we?re not selling
Charter school downtown can?t buy community center from city

by Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter Staff Writer

CHARTER SCHOOL IN ACTION ? The Golden Door Charter School in downtown Jersey City is looking at a possible move out of their current building.

In 1999, the Golden Door Charter School moved out of a series of trailers and into a new community center on Ninth Street built by the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA).

Now, 10 years later, the school of 504 kids (kindergarten through eighth grade) wants to buy the building from the JCRA. The school pays $77,000 a month in rent to the city agency, and believes it would save about $20,000 per month by being owners rather than renters.

But the city agency says it has a lot of debt to pay off on the building, and needs to keep some of the space for other tenants, including the St. Anthony?s school basketball team. They also have said that the valuable building could some day be sold to a developer.

Stabilize the children

A parent of a Golden Door student recently posted a letter on a local website pleading with Mayor Jerramiah Healy to sell the school to Golden Door.

?This is a safe environment that we will be uprooting our children from,? the parent wrote, ?only because the city is thinking of money first and not our children.?

The Jersey City Redevelopment Agency does not want to sell the building, because of the debt incurred when they used $9.5 million in bonds to erect it in 1998.

The controversial funding had been pushed through by the school?s founder, former Mayor Bret Schundler, who ultimately wanted the school to move into the building. There was a state law prohibiting public funds from being used for the construction of a charter school. Schundler is not involved with the school in any capacity at the present time, school officials say.

A charter school is a semi-public school founded by educators, parents, and other members of the public. They apply to the state to get a ?charter? and receive funding through the local Board of Education, but that board has little oversight of the private school.

A lesson in economics

Brian Stiles, the school?s chief academic officer, says the current $77,000/month rent of the school is slated to go up 10 percent to $84,000/month for the 2010-2011 school year.

Stiles and the school?s board of trustees have already met with representatives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark to find other locations in Jersey City to buy or rent in order relocate within two years.
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The Golden Door Charter has 504 kids.
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Last week, Stiles recalled meeting last year with the JCRA?s Executive Director Robert Antonicello.

?We were told flat out they would not sell the property, but it is worth a lot and is located a great area, and they could someday knock [the school] down and build a high-rise on the site,? Stiles said.

Last week, Antonicello confirmed the meeting. He said the JCRA sees the school as a valuable property that produces revenues from not only the school but also from use of the building as a community center by various organizations.

Antonicello said the issue is not that the agency needs to make a profit, but that the consistent stream of money helps to rid the JCRA of the debt.

He confirmed the comment about the site being the future home of a high-rise, but said that was an ?option.?

?We have the long-term lease, and in addition to the lease, we manage and maintain it as a community center,? Antonicello said. ?It?s still a relatively new building and we have a lot of time and money into repairs in keeping it new.?

Antonicello said if Golden Door moves out, then they will look to bring in another charter school.

Move?

The various situations facing the school beg the question: Why not move?

Stiles said the school staff and the students prefers the stability of staying in one location, recalling when the school was originally based in trailers on land located at the corner of Marin Boulevard and Christopher Columbus Drive.

Stiles said the school handed out a survey not long ago asking, ?If Golden Door Charter School relocates to St. John's School, will you continue to enroll your child at Golden Door?? Seventy-one percent said yes.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonrreporter.com.

It was formerly the Lembeck and Betz Eagle Brewery:
http://www.njcu.edu/programs/jchistory/Pages/L_Pages/Lembeck.html People who were here before I came told me that it was a beautiful building that was demolished.

Some pictures are at this site

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?pp/hh:@field(TITLE+@od1(Lembeck+++Betz+Eagle+Brewery,+Second+Brew+House,+180-182+Ninth+Street,+Jersey+City,+Hudson+County,+NJ))

and also here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lemb ... etz_Eagle_Brewing_Company

and here

So it was a historic building on the national register that was demolished to create a community center that the community could not use

The problem with the "community center" was that it was so expensive to build that every asset is for rent, not for access to the actual community, not even the playground. That's why it's the home of a private school team, and other paying guests, not a free community league.

As for theater, when they presented the plans to HPNA for community "input" (just for show), I asked about theater in the gym, which seemed natural in a "community center", and could they make a false wall behind which set flats could be stored. A big NO. We soon found out why, it was all BS.

The basketball gym is modern and new, this is the home of St. Anthony Friars (I think it's the winningest basketball teams in the country). My daughter's lessons with The Soccer Learning Center frequently gets bumped when they have playoffs.

I've seen flyers for for wrestling one weekend, (those with costumes) and saw a bunch of wrestler types guys at the time. Weddings, parties,etc.

No auditorium, but the seating at the basketball court is decent, and I imagine it can be turned into something approximating an auditorium.

I don't know much about it. When I first came to JC in late 1998, and that building was under construction, the sign said, " site of future community center". It was very surprising when the building opened as a charter school. But, Schundler was a great supporter of charter schools, so there was some malarkey, and Golden Door sits in what should be a community space!

I, a member of the community, have never been inside. I know that people seem to have parties, and basketball games there. I believe there are also senior or were senior activities at one time that were facilitated by volunteers from Grace Church.

I would like to know if there is an auditorium, as I know lots of local theater companies would like a performance space.

Does anyone know if it also functions as a community center, with activities for youth, etc.? It seems that one of the complaints from the principal is that she can't get space for meetings because it is rented out to the community.

I think the question is whether it can serve as both a school and community space, and if so how much should the school be charged.

I sincerely think that our community needs a space for actiivties other than Newport Mall

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How did you manage to get a TV show when you can't string together a grammatically correct sentence? Just wondering.

Can we get this back on the topic of how exactly the public was tricked into building the Golden Door? This is juicy. I've lived here for a while and this is the first time I've gotten wind of it and I'm curious.

The abatement stuff has been discussed and rehashed all over the place.

Good luck on your report - when should we look for it to be on? I hope you do it in a more focused manner than you debate on JC List! None of what you just said has any bearing on the point you originally made (or make on numerous other threads) that abatements are robbing money from the school district and people with abatements (PILOTs, really. The "P" stands for "Payments". Capital P Payments) are getting away with something, somehow.

The history lesson sounds interesting, but I can't see how that is going to answer the question of why the city can't manage taxpayer's money in a responsible way (and yes, PILOTs are taxes!). If I pay $x in PILOT or property taxes and the administration chooses to take that money and hand out 7% pay increase across the board and continue to bloat its staffing - this is my fault???

To T-Bird
I plan to doing a video on how waterfront abatements became, your wrong on the facts. Just remember one thing, Colgate own the land, it shut down its plant because Colgate executives said the land was worth more money developed. Former Mayor McCann agreed with the Colgate executives which caused outraged for the hundreds of soon to be lay-off employees. It is those former blue collar workers put Anthony Cucci in power in 1985. They were upset with McCann's remark. It was not in Cucci interest to reward Colgate executives over the interests of his supporters.
Yvonne

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Of course ! I just couldn't find the Sarcastic icon/face

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Not sure how it's supposed to work, I have a child in GD and wanted to publish this to see if I can harvest some information/opinions regarding this matter

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Again Yvonne, you mix your issues. You started off by inveighing against the property owners who have "abatements" and now you reverse courses and cite "reduced state income taxes for companies that relocated" on the waterfront. Two entirely different cohorts. My point was that residential development would have been much more difficult to sell (not to build) without the PILOT program. It's quite possible that residential development would have failed initially without it.

You may know things that others don't but if you don't understand them, what's the point?

There was no need to hand out abatements for the waterfront because former Governor Whitman reduced the state income taxes for companies that relocated there. There are a lot of freebies the public doesn't know about. The only people who want to maintain the status quo - developers, people who work for developers, or politicians.
Yvonne

+1 T-Bird, your comments are right on the mark.

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Yvonne, Yvonne, Yvonne - while cosmetically some of what you say is not incorrect, you completely miss the substance of the issue around PILOTs (abatements and PILOTs are two separte, though somewhat similar, things. It is PILOTs I believe you are railing against.)

To say "Without abatements (sic) property taxes would be x" is naive and well wide of the mark. Without PILOTs, at least in the initial stages of development, very little - if any - of these new buildings would have sold. So while you do your math and say "abatements (PILOTs) cost the city x", it's not as simple as that. Many of the "abated" properties wouldn't exist and therefore not even be in the discussion of the tax roll.

Do we still need to hand out PILOTs to encourage development? Probably not. Turns out the PILOTs aren't really economically advantageous to the buyer - they only guarantee that you won't get crushed down the road. The rates are actually higher in the near term and you can't appeal your valuation the way you can with unabated property. But for the umpteenth time (and I would be happy to come on your show and debate this with you), your crusade against the abated is misguided. It's the city's fiscal irresponsibility and misuse of funds that is the problem, not the fact that some of their revenue comes in the form of PILOTs and some comes from property taxes.

Some examples of taxes in downtown.


1 bedroom condo 500 sq ft 3rd street...condo conversion taxes approx 6000k


2 family brownstone..1 block from Hamilton Park $6700k


2 bedroom condo..bay street tax abated $9770


2 bedroom condo coles street 15k( the abatment ended)


We need a revaluation...

I don't disagree that the system is broken, or that it's "fair" to tell a 1BR condo owner paying $7K/year in PILOTs that they are getting a "free ride".

I just don't think it's useful to take an already confusing general topic (abatements), and confuse two important specific aspects, the need for a reval and the lack of funding for the county and schools.

Part and parcel of a property-based tax system is the need to come up with new rates when new construction happens. Whether taxes are reval'ed every 5 years or every 25, new construction is always going to take a hit by essentially being spot-evaluated for tax purposes. How else would you propose taxing new units?

All the more reason to buy historic.

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As you more or less admit, when it comes down to it since most new construction is PILOT's (rather than abated, calling PILOTS abatements is incorrect) for practical purposes they DO pay much more than the older properties on the tax rolls at significantly lower assessments. Often a 1 bedroom will pay more than a 3 family house. This difference dwarfs the one between PILOTed and not.

Is the system broken? No doubt. IF you look at taxes for properties vs their value the assessments are all over the map, I've found older multifamily houses with twice the rents of a similar nearby one of equal value. We need a reval and a fair program to funnel PILOT money to the schools as Fulop proposed. But lets get real about who's paying what, and who's getting the "free ride". The fact that PILOTed properties pay nothing for schools is way more important than whether they pay more or less than they would without the PILOT.

If you opt out of an abatement, you pay the same rate, but the money no longer goes directly to the city. Opting out does not mean you pay more or less. Also, abated properties are newer and therefore the owners are paying taxes based on a more realistic property value than folks who have not been revalued in ages.

And do you really think there would be any waterfront development without abatements?

To Know it all, you don't understand why abatements hurt the city. The county strikes the budget not the city, the county sets the tax rate based on the ratable base. Approximately 2.7 or 2.9 billions are not added to the ratable base. The ratable base is presently $6 billion. Taxes could be in the lower $40.00 range if the city did not hand out tax abatements. Let's look at Hoboken for comparison. Hoboken did not hand out abatements until recently. The Tea building is not abated, Corzine lives there. However, the newly constructed W hotel was. Dave Roberts decided to follow the nonsense of JC. For years, Hoboken was developed without abatements.
Yvonne

"Usually much higher than non-abated properies"? Really?

Any abated property owner can typically opt out of the abatement and pay their regular non-abated tax rate, right? If they stood to pay less, wouldn't everybody opt out?

Trying to compare new construction/conversion (and thus newly assessed) versus pre-existing structures is one thing, but suggesting that abated taxpayers pay "more" is dubious, because with rare exception, they are paying less than they otherwise would be without the abatement.

Apples and zebras.

There is a big misconception on tax abated properties. Tax abated property owners do pay taxes and usually much higher than non-abated properties. I know people who pay 7k a year, to live in a tax abated property,for a 1 bedroom.

Granted abatements hurt the school system but the citizens who live in these properties are not getting a free ride. The whole city needs a revalution.

GDCS was born out of a sham pepetrated on the taxpayers of Jersey City by the Schundler administration and has enjoyed the benefits since then. Anything born out of deceipt like that is likely to suffer the cosequences of such dishonest behavior. When Healy/Schundler were running against each other at that time Healy took Schundler to task over this blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars. Healy was right then (I can't believe i'm saying that, my keyboard is resisting every letter I type. Even a broken clock is right twice a day) and after enjoying these ill gotten gains don't expect too much sympathy.

Wow, this is the biggest load of nonsense that i've heard in a while. I read a few sentences and i just stopped.

I doubt the city is making money off the rent, just paying off the high cost of the place. Without more numbers, this is nonsense. If the offered price covers the value, maybe it's a reasonable idea. If they're looking for a gift, why them? LCCS has gotten no gifts from the city.

Chester, I have never seen you tax abatement hearings. Any time you want to debate the facts on my show send me an email. If you choose not to, then be quiet.
Yvonne

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I believe her dislike of them comes from the fact that she doesn't even understand what an abatement is.

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Why? Do all the students live within walking distance?

From the Learning Community thread: "Also, since JC buses, if there is not a school bus that goes there, the parents are reimbursed for the transportation to that school. (the reimbursement is not just for charter/public schools, but even private or religious schools.) It's sponsored by the state."

Doesn't really seem like an insurmountable problem. As far as staff, if a move across town is all it takes for them to quit, I'd say their students' adoration is misplaced. LCCS families are following their school.

But if GDCS can't afford the rent, how are they going to afford a mortgage? Or do they expect the city to sell at a bargain price? If the city has to sell, I would hope it would be to the highest bidder if for no other reason than to pay off the bonds used to build it.

Taxpayers paid for the building, pay for the bonds, and pay for the school. Enough is enough.

Yvonne doesn't like tax abatements, like really... really dislikes them.