Town is Ready to Condemn 98-Acre Tract

Negotiations are currently underway between officials of Ingersoll-Rand and a development company, which has not been publicly identified, for the sale of the property. Just in case those negotiations don't go very well, township officials have a fallback plan to get something done with the site.

This week, the township council okayed an ordinance giving the township the right to declare the site "blighted," and to enter into condemnation proceedings. If the community takes that route, any subsequent project would be a candidate for state and/or federal funding. According to Lopatcong Mayor Douglas Steinhardt, the ordinance was put in place to help "if we need to be involved in the actual development of the site."

For its part, the Woodcliff Lake, NJ-based Ingersoll-Rand is currently involved in another potential redevelopment project, this one in neighboring Phillipsburg. In this case, the company owns a tract of nearly 140 acres that city officials in Phillipsburg want to have redeveloped. And, in this case, the community similarly enacted a blighted land ordinance should potential development plans fall through.

In the Phillipsburg case, the community has designated a partnership group consisting of Woodmont Properties of Parsippany, NJ, the South Whitehall, PA-based Brownfield Realty Co. and local attorney Michael Perrucci as the developer of choice. The Phillipsburg site is anticipated to have a build-out of at least one million sf of mixed-use space.

And the two separate projects are also related because of the fact that the two communities adjoin each other. The Lopatcong project likely couldn't proceed without a road extension to the site, which would have to be approved by officials in Phillipsburg.