Fort Hancock Developer Evicted From Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook Partners, LLC has been evicted from the three buildings it retained control over after its MasterLease with the National Park Service to rehabilitate Fort Hancock was terminated. The former park headquarters, the theater and the chapel were subject to the separate lease that Sandy Hook Parnters defaulted on in October.

The park service changed the locks on the buildings on November 24, according to a report in the Asbury Park Press.

Sandy Hook Partners was chosen from a pool of 20 applicants to rehabilitate Fort Hancock in 2001. There plan faced strong opposition from the late Judith Stanley Coleman who formed Save Sandy Hook to oppose the private redevelopment of the fort. The Sandy Hook Partners master lease was terminated last year when the firm failed to secure financing for their plan after six extensions to the agreement.

Congressman Frank Pallone supported private redevelopment before joining the opposition. He and Congressman Rush Holt are now urging the Park Service to lease the 36 rundown buildings to non-profits on a building by building basis and not as part of an overall rehabilitation effort.

That won’t work either. If Fort Hancock is to remain a historic landmark and open to the public, federal funding is the only viable option to restore the buildings. Pallone did not have the clout to make that happen during the Clinton administration nor during the first two years of the Obama administration. Not only is it unlikely that he can get funding for it now that he is soon to be a minority member of Congress, he’s not even trying.

In the meantime the buildings continue to deteriorate. It is very likely that they will continue to decline, unless Pallone can prevail on Senators Robert Menendez and/or Frank Lautenberg to secure funding for rehabilitation.

As the Park Service seeks public input on the future of the fort, they should also consider turning it over to the military….either the adjoining Coast Guard station or to the Earle Naval Weapons Station.