Despite earlier plans to keep an old x-rated movie theater and a nearby hotel neighboring a proposed elementary school site, officials here say they now plan to demolish the two after one politician complained about the project.
According to The New York Times, the New Jersey Schools Construction Corp., which is responsible for building schools in the state’s poorest areas, will now demolish the Montauk Theater and the Hotel Passaic and build a parking lot on the site for the proposed $37 million school project.
The financially-strapped agency had originally planned not to acquire the theater or hotel properties since it would have cost about $55 million, but that changed when Democratic Assemblyman Gary S. Schaer complained to Scott Weiner, a special counsel to Gov. Jon. S. Corzine for school construction.
Schaer argued that it was inappropriate for a school to be built near an adult theater and a hotel said to be used by prostitutes.
The agency’s new boss, Barry L. Zubrow, now says the demolition will go through, but said in the future, that local school boards and local public agencies would have to absorb more costs in design, land acquisition and other areas.
It was just last April that the state inspector general blasted the agency for being vulnerable to mismanagement, fiscal malfeasance, conflicts of interest and waste. But three months later, the agency reported that only half of its proposed new schools in poor districts would be built due to cost overruns which had taken up much of its $6 billion set aside for such projects.
