Clinic site is eligible for historic registers
Bank tells board N. Main St. building cannot be salvaged
BY JESSICA SMITH
Staff Writer

MILLTOWN - The Forney Clinic has been deemed eligible for the state and national registers of historic places, but it is unclear whether that will have an effect on a bank's plan to tear it down.

Local residents contacted the agencies in charge of the registers to inquire about adding the 150-year-old North Main Street building to the lists after Valley National Bank proposed to clear the site for a new branch. The bank's application continues to be heard by the borough's Zoning Board of Adjustment.

"Based on the additional information that we received regarding the project site, Valley National Bank's proposed plans for demolition and new construction will have an adverse effect on the Forney house and clinic," Dorothy P. Guzzo, deputy state historic preservation officer, wrote in a Sept. 26 letter to a bank representative.

The building is reported to date to the mid to late 1800s, and was built by the Evans family, whose son served as Milltown's first mayor. The house was converted to a medical facility, which operated from 1907 until the 1970s.

In June, Michael Shakarjian, chairman of the Lawrence Brook Watershed Partnership, filed a preliminary application for eligibility on behalf of Milltown's Environmental Commission and Historic Society. He recently received a letter stating that the clinic has been determined eligible for listing, and he submitted the documents to Richard Ryan, chairman of the borough's zoning board. Ryan did not return calls from the Sentinel seeking comment.

"In terms of timeliness, we need to deal with what we have, which is eligibility," Shakarjian said.

While the process of obtaining approval for registry would take six months to a year, he said, there is some benefit to the clinic having been deemed eligible. However, even with eligibility, the owner of the clinic still has the right to modify or demolish the building.

Valley National Bank must receive approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to set up the branch, Shakarjian said, and to obtain that the project must meet the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The act requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their actions regarding properties that are deemed historically valuable.

The bank contracted Hunter Research, a historical resource consulting group, to prepare the required Section 106 review of the property in 2005. Hunter Research determined that the Forney Clinic does not meet the criteria to be included in the National Register of Historic Places. That conclusion, however, relied on information from a 1978 county report, according to Shakarjian.

When the State Historic Preservation Office reviewed new information about the site, it withdrew its original consultation comments from this past April and deemed it eligible for listing. The clinic was determined to be eligible under several criteria for identification of historic properties, according to Guzzo's letter.

It meets Criterion A "for its community services and its medical role in a community"; Criterion C "as an example of a type of house adaptively reused as a small clinic"; and Criterion D "for its ability to yield more information on early 20th-century medical practices."

At a zoning board meeting Oct. 4, representatives of the bank testified that the Forney Clinic is structurally unsound and harbors numerous unsafe conditions. They did not address the revised document from the State Historic Preservation Office that withdrew earlier remarks that the demolition would not pose a threat to historical values.

Architect Salvatore Corvino cited numerous problems with the building. Water and termite damage, mold and mildew, rusted pipes, asbestos, and missing bricks and beams were all cited as reasons that the Forney Clinic is unsalvageable and unsafe, as of his reinspection of the building Aug. 16.

"[Putting the bank there would be] removing a nonconforming residential use," said site engineer Joseph Hanrahan.

He also said the bank would enhance the aesthetics of the site, remove parking from along the county road, and improve safety because of a reduction in traffic conflicts on the road there.

"The positive criterion that they're going to provide is a new business in the town, and that is duplicative and redundant," Shakarjian said.

Valley National Bank's representatives will continue their testimony at a November zoning board meeting.

Mayor Gloria Bradford said she could not comment on the situation, because the application is still pending.