Going to church?

The municipality’s proposed purchase of the former Presbyterian Church property might never happen. But it may hold an informal record for the most-often discussed issue at Middlesex Borough Council executive sessions.

The Mountain Avenue church property was again listed on the council’s closed-door session agenda on Tuesday, June 11. That’s nothing unusual. The potential property acquisition has been discussed at numerous executive sessions dating back to July 2022.

The council continues to consider the matter and run up related legal bills. The acquisition, however, does not appear imminent and might even be considered somewhat in doubt, based on the comments of Borough Attorney Chris Corsini.

Corsini answered a few questions – albeit with the guarded language of a municipal attorney – during the public portion of the June 11 session.

A recent itemized invoice from Corsini’s legal firm – Savo, Schalk, Corsini, Warner, Gillespie, O’Grodnick & Fisher. – mentioned the word “closing” on one day’s billing related to the Presbyterian Church.

Corsini said that was not an indication that the borough is moving towards a purchase. The church had done some “initial preparation” in the event of a closing, he said.

As far as the status of the negotiations, it appears to be a matter of how far the church will go to accommodate the borough’s concerns.

“The church is answering some issues we’ve raised on behalf of the taxpayers,” Corsini said. The borough will not purchase the property if those issues are not addressed,” he said.

Earlier this year, Corsini called the borough’s purchase of the former church site “a big if.”

The negotiations between the church and borough have taken twists and turns in the past two years.

The council passed a resolution in September 2022 stating the intent to purchase the Presbyterian Church parcel for $900,000.

An environmental study ensued. Although officials have not been specific, they have acknowledged that the study uncovered potential issues with the six-acre property.

The Presbyterian Church parcel sits between the former borough landfill and the Ronald S. Dobies municipal building. The landfill was once found to contain contaminated soil trucked there from the former Middlesex Sampling Plant site. The MSP was the site of Manhattan Project research that led to the country’s development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s.

The landfill was remediated under the direction of the federal government and has continued to be subject of groundwater monitoring.

In March, the council passed a followup resolution revising the purchase price to $350,000. The price drop was apparently due the study results.

Borough officials have said the former Presbyterian Church building could be used as additional space for the recreation department and senior services.

It is the second property to be considered for those uses in recent years. The first also ran into snags.

In 2017, the council entered an agreement to lease the former Our Lady of Mount Virgin School for those purposes for $5,000 per month. After the lease was agreed to, it was determined that the former school was not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

A lawsuit – filed by the borough – ensued, but was eventually dropped. The municipality never used the former parochial school for the intended purposes, although it paid the monthly lease fee for roughly a year.

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