Vacant Elizabeth Edwards School Not Suitable As Town Hall Site

BARNEGAT, NJ - Barnegat officials have nixed the idea of using the long-vacant Elizabeth Edwards School on Route 9 as a possible new Town Hall, Mayor Albert Bille told The Sandpaper.

Barnegat officials recently introduced a $14.2 million ordinance to pay for a new municipal building and public works facility on the same site as the current 40-year-old Town Hall on West Bay Avenue.

The school - once the original Barnegat High School - dates back to 1930. It was later used as an elementary school, but was closed in 2004 because of structural and handicapped access problems. It has sat vacant ever since, the front door boarded up and all power to the building cut off.

The building was used for storage, offices and activities of the Our Gang Players theatrical group. Not longer after it closed, township officials toyed with the idea of using it as the municipal building and selling the current site for commercial development.

“But that’s not going to happen,” Bille said. “It is not in a good location because most of our population is located west of Route 9, and then you have all those developments west of the Parkway, which are much closer to our (current) municipal complex.”

The cost to renovate the Edwards school would be about $7 million. But Bille said the township might not wind up using the entire $14.2 million for the new municipal building.

"That's just a figure to get us started," he said.

To read the entire story, click here.

Photo: Patch archive photo