Borough Officials May Ask For 1.5 Acres of Port Authority Land Back

Fort Lee Borough officials said Thursday that they want about an acre-and-a-half of land back that the Port Authority took by eminent domain several years ago for the purpose of building a helix providing direct access to the lower level of the George Washington Bridge but ultimately abandoned the project.

The area in question is on the right as you take the side entrance to the GWB toll plaza off Bruce Reynolds Boulevard and directly across Bruce Reynolds from Redevelopment Area 5.

“The property we owned was actually the extension of Central Road; the other properties were all privately held,” explained Fort Lee Councilman Joseph Cervieri at a relatively brief Mayor and Council executive session. “Several years ago, the Port Authority went in and took it by eminent domain with this plan for this helix, which was supposed to be completed by 2011. That was their five-year plan. It never happened. It’s now off the board.”

The Port Authority also had plans to move their administration building to that area, freeing up its current location at 220 Bruce Reynolds Blvd. for municipal parking, but that never happened either.

“They were going to contribute that and contribute the cost of the infrastructure for building a parking garage on the municipal parking lot at no cost to us,” Cervieri said. “However the Port Authority still owns property that we vacated at not cost. We should be getting it back because they did not build the helix.”

Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich said he is in the process of setting up a meeting with the Port Authority, during which he plans to take up the issue. He said the property is unsightly, for one thing, but also potentially useful to the borough at this point.

“That is not a huge facelift,” Sokolich said. “Even if we don’t know what to do with it, we could take it down and just put some benches or sod it or something. [We could] let Redevelopment 5 do it because they’re not going to want to look at it.”

The mayor said that if the borough is successful in getting the property back from the Port Authority, it could be flattened out and transformed into “a destination to walk to … or a dog park.”

“I don’t want to lose track of the dog park,” Sokolich said. “I want to get refocused on that.”

He also said that with the “Herculean task” that is Redevelopment Area 5 “about to start,” it will allow the governing body to get back to “some other issues we’ve got to deal with because [Redevelopment 5] took up a lot of time.”