Community arts center's total cost to be unveiled
Construction began last fall on facility at Heavenly Farms
BY VINCENT TODARO Staff Writer

EAST BRUNSWICK - The township administration is expected to produce a final cost estimate next week for the community arts center, which is under construction at Heavenly Farms.

Mayor William Neary said he expects Township Business Administrator James White to have the cost figure at theMarch 31 council meeting. The number has long been sought by some residents and officials, but Neary has said that he did not want to release a speculative cost figure until one was arrived at definitively.At aDecember council meeting, however, Neary said he too was frustrated that his staff had not provided him with a final dollar amount, and that hewould ask the hired architect for a figure.

Construction began last fall on the community arts center, funded via partial appropriations that the Township Council approved over the past year. The council awarded a bid of $1.23million for the project last June, and later approved a resolution allowing for another $200,000 to be spent on items such as plumbing, bathrooms and other work.

The township generated about $1.2 million for the project in 2005 when it sold the former Playhouse 22 property on Dunhams Corner Road. And recently, the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders announced itwill award the township $500,000 from the county's Open Space, Recreation and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund for the facility.

Neary told the Sentinel that the councilapproved allocations are paying for most of the building, but that the town had yet to solicit bids for interior items such as seating for the theater, lighting and sliding doors. He said he hopes to have part of the facility in operation by the end of this summer, though he was not certain what components would be ready at that time.

The facilitywill include a 195-seat theater that will be the new home of Playhouse 22, meeting space for township groups, a kitchen and an outdoor amphitheatre.

CouncilmanDavid Stahl has been a vocal critic of theway the administration has handled the arts center, and has complained several times about the lack of a final cost figure. Stahl acknowledged that an anticipated cost of beyond $3million figure is somewhatmisleading, because it includes infrastructure work that can be used for future projects at Heavenly Farms. A road and stormwater management system initially built to facilitate the arts center could also be used for other things, such as a community center, which has been discussed as a separate building from the community arts center.

Toll Brothers agreed to pay $5million towards the community center when it purchased the Golden Triangle property from the township. Stahl said there has been preliminary discussion about that $5 million being used to expand the community arts center, rather than construct a separate building. Themoneywill become available in 2011. Stahl said the township could also put the $5 million into a reserve at that point, and "reassess"what needs to be done. For example, if residents or the economy dictate that the money would be better used elsewhere, that can be done.

"If the community does not support it, you can look for an alternative way to spend it," he said.

Neary has said that the community center would be a smaller project and it would only be built with grants or other revenues, as opposed to taxpayers'money.

Regarding the arts center nowunder construction, Stahl said the township has already paid more than $100,000 to the architectwho designed it, and $1.2million to the builder, in addition to the $200,000 for plumbing and other work.

"The gist of it was that there would be no additional taxpayer dollars other than the $1.2 million," he said of Neary's initial plans for the arts center, which was first discussed in 2004.

Stahl said the township caught somewhat of a break when phase one of the Heavenly Farms work, which included the dog park and athletic fields, came in under budget. That enabled the township to take the approximately $300,000 left over and apply it to phase two,which included the community arts center.

"But it's still taxpayers' money, that $300,000," he said.