Closed defense sites are like snowflakes in that no two are alike. The efforts to redevelop two New Jersey forts show the obstacles to revitalization.

It is rare to come across hundreds of acres of land for sale in New Jersey, the country’s most densely populated state. But in Monmouth County, about 50 miles south of New York City, two expansive sites have sat largely undeveloped for years.

The catch? Both are former military forts and, as such, come with a litany of hurdles that prospective buyers do not usually encounter with redevelopment projects.

After years of setbacks, Fort Monmouth, which is spread across three New Jersey boroughs — Oceanport, Eatontown and Tinton Falls — is inching toward a deal with Netflix to build a production studio on 290 acres. Fifteen miles away at Fort Hancock in Middletown, local officials are struggling to breathe a second life into a deteriorating harbor defense site, despite a commitment from a New York real estate developer to revamp most of the aging officers’ quarters into residences.

“I can imagine the project taking off, but I can also imagine the buildings reaching a point of no return and coming down,” said Tom Jones, 61, a film writer and director who camped at Fort Hancock as a Boy Scout and now leases a building there for personal use.

Closed military bases are like snowflakes in that no two are alike. Each location has its own set of geographic, economic and political factors that influence plans. The two New Jersey forts have encountered a multitude of challenges, and offer lessons for other locations seeking revitalization.

“Not only are Fort Hancock and Fort Monmouth microcosms of military redevelopment issues and considerations, but military bases are microcosms of broader redevelopment concerns for many different areas,” said Michael Touchton, a political science professor at the University of Miami and a co-author of “Salvaging Community: How American Cities Rebuild Closed Military Bases.”

Since 1988, more than 350 bases have been designated for closing under the federal government’s Base Realignment and Closure process. The Department of Defense wants to eliminate bases unnecessary to its broader defense interests, and communities must balance funding and long-term planning with short-term needs of elected officials, Mr. Touchton said.

Developers and other potential users are often aware of the tangle of bureaucracy that comes with such sites, “which is why they’re not beating down anybody’s door to fund these big projects,” he added.

Rarely does a community stumble into a fortuitous situation as one did when the producer and director Tyler Perry spent $30 million to buy the former Fort McPherson site in Atlanta and promised to invest $250 million for a film studio and other facilities. Development plans are typically more challenging.

Some former bases rely on temporary leases — one example is Naval Air Station Alameda in California, which struggled to broker a long-term deal acceptable to developers, the Navy, local regulators and residents. Other bases are listed as Superfund sites, which require extensive environmental cleanup work.

Conversion of a defense site is often a 50-year effort “fraught with economic constraints,” and some bases have been empty for so long that weeds and feral cats have taken over, according to “Salvaging Community.”

The redevelopment of a base can often draw several interested parties, including local and state leaders as well as the Department of Defense, the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. When multiple decision makers are involved, division can lead to delays and the potential loss of millions in tax income.

Complicating matters, federal law limits the improvements the military can make once a location is listed for closing. Environmental remediation on these sites can involve problems like lead, asbestos and fuel plumes in the soil, and surveys and cleanup can “balloon into hundreds of millions in the blink of an eye,” Mr. Touchton said.

Despite the challenges, the military has a financial incentive to move forward with base closings. Since 2005, the U.S. government has reportedly saved $1 billion annually through the closure program, and there are calls for additional evaluations.

When Fort Monmouth was designated in 2005 for closing, legislation created a planning authority to oversee redevelopment of the 1,127-acre site, where instrumental technologies like radar were developed. But the authority wasted several years trying to make decisions, said Peter Reinhart, who studied the fort as director of the Kislak Real Estate Institute at Monmouth University.

Before Fort Monmouth officially closed in 2011, a different planning authority was formed that includes county and state officials, three mayors and state commissioners overseeing areas like environmental protection and labor and work force development.

“We essentially have all the state and local stakeholders in a room to make these decisions, which is pretty helpful,” said Kara Kopach, the executive director of the new planning group, the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority.

Still, the redevelopment process has weathered stormy periods, including the 2008 financial crisis and the loss of funding. On top of that, the fort has many outdated buildings, and when it was built, the military did not have to follow normal standards for installing utilities like electrical lines.

A turning point came in 2021 when the planning authority nixed a requirement for retail and residential use, giving the site more flexibility, and formed a “mega site,” incorporating an additional 200 acres into the original 89-acre lot.

Bases that take a “big picture approach” like that are often the most successful, said Jay Lybik, national director of multifamily analytics at CoStar, which analyzes the commercial real estate industry. “When you’re trying to do one-offs or piecemeal, it’s death by a thousand cuts.”

Fort Hancock is still figuring out its future. After the site closed in 1974, the land was transferred to the National Park Service. Attempts to have a single developer lead the rehabilitation led to years of lawsuits.

In 2012, the secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, helped create the Fort Hancock 21st Century Federal Advisory Committee, which provides recommendation for reuse of historic buildings like the houses on Officers Row, which are on the Sandy Hook barrier spit.

Environmental cleanup concerns have been a major hindrance, though. Land at Fort Hancock served as a weapons testing ground since 1874, and unexploded ordnance is still found on public beaches, according to the National Park Service website. Conservationists argue the area already has a fragile ecosystem. And many houses on Officers Row are dilapidated, but because of their status as a national landmark, they are restricted from certain upgrades.

Despite the obstacles, Barney Sheridan is committed to reviving Fort Hancock.

In 2017, Mr. Sheridan was visiting from Pennsylvania and became enamored with the officers’ houses. He now leases one and opened McFly’s on the Hook, a general store.

Like other small-business owners at Fort Hancock, Mr. Sheridan wants to preserve the area’s history. However, unexpected property taxes, stringent historical preservation standards and other red tape have made it difficult.

“You have to have a small amount of money, a lot of patience and you have to be a tad bit crazy,” Mr. Sheridan said.

Even wealthier investors are having difficulty navigating the maze of authority at Fort Hancock. Stillman Development International, the New York developer committed to redeveloping the site, wants to convert 21 buildings into apartments, but the National Park Service has been slow to fix aging properties.

“When you bring in a redeveloper or when you bring in private dollars, there are concessions they need in order to make it financially viable or nobody’s going to be able to do anything out there,” said Mayor Tony Perry of Middletown.

At Fort Monmouth, about 86 percent of the land is under contract, in negotiations or in some stage of redevelopment, Ms. Kopach said. Smaller businesses operating there include a brewery, medical care facilities and a satellite college campus.

Despite that progress, not everyone is pleased. A group called No2Netflix was formed to oppose the Netflix deal and others like it, saying tax credits that are part of the arrangements could be seen as corporate welfare. But development deals also take taxpayers off the hook for some risks and costs, Mr. Touchton said.

“Yes, these developers stand to make a lot of money, but only if these things go well,” he said. “Right now, nobody’s making money, the taxpayers are saddled with a liability. They’ve got albatrosses around their necks.”

A building that used to be the old mule barn at Sandy Hook's Fort Hancock is being turned into a bar/restaurant:

|Updated Wed, May 10, 2023 at 10:28 am ET

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — We are practically tripping over all the new bars opening in the Middletown area this year.

The latest news today is that a building that used to be the old mule barn at Sandy Hook’s Fort Hancock is being turned into a bar/restaurant.

This was confirmed by the National Park Service, but it was first reported in the Asbury Park Press. It will be called the Mule Barn Tavern and is aiming to open by July 4th weekend.

It will have an outdoor patio overlooking Sandy Hook Bay and will face west, so by mid-summer you can sit back with a cold drink and watch the sun set over Raritan Bay.

Locals are already saying they hope it will be a nice replacement for the Sea Gull's Nest, a beloved local watering hole inside the park that was destroyed during Superstorm Sandy and never reopened.

Find out what's happening in Middletownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The National Park Service has been trying to redevelop the Officers' Row of housing at the tip of Sandy Hook for decades now. The owner of Mule Barn Tavern is leasing the property from the National Park Service; he had to put all the work and expense in of turning the old animal shed into a tavern.

This comes on the heels of this week's news that a new brewery, Ross Brewing, will open this Friday afternoon (1 p.m.) next to the Belford Seafood Co-op, and steps from the Belford ferry terminal. They will have a grand celebration party all weekend long; look for celebrity bartenders to stop by and pour beers. If you snap any good photos of celebs, send them to carly.baldwin@patch.com

Also, the abandoned Fort Monmouth Army base is trying to reawaken as a local bar/nightlife scene:

Craft brewery Birdsmouth Beer opened there this past October. They are located at 675 Oceanport Way in Oceanport.

Also, a massive new sports bar called Baseline Social is supposed to open right next door. It will be located right next to Birdsmouth Beer, but is currently still under construction.

Baseline Social is owned by three experienced Monmouth County restauranteurs, Andrea Pappas, Greg Bartz and Phil Villapiano, the owners of Deal Lake Bar + Co in Loch Harbor.

Once Baseline Social opens, it's supposed to have huge LED TVs, five virtual golf bays with full-swing technology and outdoor fire pits.

After years of pleas for redevelopment, a historic New Jersey fort is getting a second chance.

Fort Hancock has endured a lot of internal and external beatings. According to reports, Hurricane Sandy destroyed one of its bunkers in 2012 and damaged some of its concrete defensive positions that were located on the beach. One of the buildings on the site had a roof collapse in 2015.

A new plan to fix the structure rolled out last month with a ribbon cutting at the landmark.

“This has been in the works for a number of years but now its a clear road ahead to get these renovations done," said Lillian G. Burry, the Monmouth County freeholder who led the movement to restore the fort. “This is on the National Registry of Historic Places and has to be treated with reverence."

The freeholder board held a ceremony on June 19 with officials from the Marine Academy of Science & Technology, National Park Service, and the U.S Navy.

Originally named the Fortifications at Sandy Hook, Fort Hancock played a major role in defending the Atlantic Coast and the entrance to the New York Harbor dating back to 1764, when the Sandy Hook Lighthouse was built. The fort was decommissioned in December of 1974 and has since been turned over to the National Park Service, serving as the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area.

This renovation project was allotted close to $12 million from the county’s capital budget.

“We are really excited to be a part of this collaboration,” said Public Affairs Specialist for Gateway National Recreation Area Daphne Yun. “It is amazing to take the history that we had, go forward with it and turn it into something useful.”

This project will start with the renovation of two buildings on the site, 23 and 56. Once done, the buildings will be used by the Navy -- Building 23 will house classrooms and other facilities for the cadets to access. Naval Science Building 56 will be a storage facility housing more than $1 million worth of Navy uniforms and equipment.

The actual construction has yet to start, thanks to Ospreys that have taken a liking to the chimneys at the top of the buildings. Construction is halted until the eggs hatch and the baby birds can take flight, Burry said.

The anticipated opening date for both buildings is set for September 2021.

Every year, millions of people visiting New Jersey’s national parks are greeted by facilities that have fallen woefully far behind on repairs.

Potholes that could pass as craters riddle Old Mine Road, the Delaware Water Gap’s main thoroughfare in Hardwick. At Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, Glenmont Mansion — where the famed inventor lived — is just one of many historic buildings that needs to be restored. And on Sandy Hook in Monmouth County, the seawall keeping Raritan Bay from flooding Fort Hancock’s historic, yet dilapidated, Officer’s Row is crumbling.

Hundreds of millions of dollars need to be spent on repairs at national parks and historic sites in the Garden State, according to the federal government. Billions are needed to address the problem nationwide and as the backlog of repairs builds, the American public risks losing pieces of the nation’s history and some of its more breathtaking scenes.

Federal parks in New Jersey need more than $223 million in repairs; that’s a portion of the $11.9 billion work backlog that the National Park Service faces as of the end of fiscal year 2018.

Aging facilities, increased visitation, and resource constraints have kept the maintenance backlog between $11 billion and $12 billion since 2010, according to the National Park Service.

“The American public, we’re loving our parks to death,” said Brenda Ling, a spokeswoman for the Gateway National Recreation Area.

More than 318 million people visited national parks across the country in 2018, according to the National Park Service. Here are a few of the most serious problems affecting New Jersey’s parks:

- The Gateway National Recreation Area, which includes Sandy Hook in Monmouth County as well as sites in New York, was the fourth-most popular park with more than 9.2 million visitors that year, yet it needs more than $774 million in repairs as of fiscal year 2018, though much of that is for the New York sections. Still, $123.3 million is needed for repairs at the Sandy Hook portion of the park.

- In Sussex County, the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area straddles the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border. The park spans roughly 70,000 acres across both states and is a regional draw; more than 3.2 million people visited the park last year, according to the National Park Service. The Delaware Water Gap NRA is facing $147.5 million work backlog as of fiscal year 2018, according to the National Park Service. Of that total, $84.3 million is needed just for repairs on the New Jersey side of the park.

- Thomas Edison National Historical Park in Essex County, which preserves the famed inventor’s home and laboratory, is about $8.4 million behind on repairs. Meanwhile, the Morristown National Historical Park, which is spread across Morris and Somerset Counties and protects key Revolutionary War sites, needs about $7.2 million in work.

The Obama administration began emphasizing the work backlog in fiscal year 2015. That focus has continued under the Trump administration, according to Marcia Argust, the project director for the Pew Charitable Trust’s Restore America’s Parks program.

Argust said that annual federal appropriations to the national parks system have increased in recent years. And the National Park Service, while working under financial constraint, does its best make important improvements to the parks. Last September at Sandy Hook, for example, Gateway NRA celebrated the reopening of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse and the Fort Hancock Post Museum. The lighthouse had been closed for nearly a year for restoration work, while the museum had been closed since 2010 and suffered damage from Hurricane Sandy.

But Argust warns that the annual appropriations are a one-time gift. Her program advocates for permanent funding dedicated to the upkeep of America’s national parks.

“Dedicated annual funding would provide the [National Park Service] with certainty that they could undertake planning, design and contracts for these larger scale or more complicated deferred maintenance projects that are often the more expensive projects,” Argust said.

In Washington, D.C., lawmakers have begun pushing for such a solution.

The bipartisan Restore Our Parks and Public Lands Act, first introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last July by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, would create a fund for addressing the needed park repairs. The fund would be financed by money from federal drilling and mining leases. The bill is cosponsored by three of New Jersey’s 12 representatives.

Meanwhile in the Senate, a bipartisan bill called the Restore Our Parks Act was first introduced to the U.S. Senate last June by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH). Like the House bill, this legislation would use money collected by the federal government from drilling and mining leases to fund park repairs.

Of the New Jersey delegation, Sen. Cory Booker is a cosponsor of the Restore Our Parks Act.

“National parks showcase our nation’s natural beauty and have inspired visitors across New Jersey and America for generations,” said Sen. Booker. “Unfortunately, the $12 billion National Park Service maintenance backlog is preventing critical infrastructure improvement projects from moving forward, including the repair of damage caused by Superstorm Sandy. We have an obligation to ensure that New Jersey’s National Park Service sites are safe, well-maintained, and resilient in the face of future natural disasters.”

At their April 27 meeting, the National Park Service gave The Stillman Group approval to build two apartments first, and see how they go:

|Updated Fri, May 12, 2023 at 3:25 pm ET

SANDY HOOK — The National Park Service, which operates Sandy Hook, has been trying for years to entice people to lease the abandoned Officers' Row buildings at the park's tip, and turn them into commercial properties.

Plans are still moving forward on a developer's proposal to turn the largest chunk of Officers' Row into apartments. Officers' Row is where officers used to live when Sandy Hook was a U.S. Army base.

The Stillman Group, run by Roy Stillman, wants to lease 21 buildings, gut renovate them and subdivide them into apartments. There would be a maximum of five apartments inside each building, ranging from studio to three-bedroom units. Some buildings would have fewer than five apartments.

However, at their most recent meeting on April 27, the Fort Hancock 21st Century Federal Advisory Committee — the federal task force that oversees development in the park — gave Stillman approval to first only build two apartments, and see how those two endure weather conditions, etc. at the Hook.

Stillman says they would keep the historical façade of the buildings, and only gut renovate the inside. You can watch this presentation Roy Stillman gave the National Park Service last October on what he is proposing.

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Some of the units would be affordable housing, which local Assemblyman Gerry Scharfenberger (R-Middletown) warned "could be a flashpoint with the public" and may be met with resistance. Scharfenberger suggested veterans' housing instead.

Stillman's plan is controversial, as some say Sandy Hook should remain a national park and outdoor space, and not be turned into year-round housing. Most vocally against the idea are Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ 6), who represents this area, and the NJ Sierra Club.

However, the Monmouth County Board of Commissioners say they support apartments and that it's better to see Officers' Row buildings being used instead of sitting dilapidated and falling further into disrepair.

In April, we reported that a local Monmouth County man is currently hard at work converting the old mule barn — literally, where the U.S. Army used to keep mules in the early 1900s — into a bar/restaurant. It will be called the Mule Barn Tavern and is aiming to open by July 4th weekend.

Mule Barn Tavern Coming To Tip Of Sandy Hook (April 13)

You can read the latest on Stillman's proposal: https://www.nps.gov/gate/learn...

What's currently at Sandy Hook:

As of April 27, seven Officers' Row buildings in total have been leased and are either in use or being rehabilitated. They are:

The National Park Service says it has preliminary agreements with potential users for 24 of the remaining buildings. 21 of those buildings are covered under the largest single agreement — the Stillman apartment proposal.

The National Park Service continues to accept proposals as back-ups. If you have an idea to lease one of the buildings, you can apply here: Fort Hancock Leasing Program

The last time we reported on the 80+ Sandy Hook apartments:

Plan For Private Sandy Hook Apartments Moves Forward (2021)