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February 2009 – week 3 Issue
Best of Bergen 2009
Luxury housing market struggles
Stately homes in Alpine
Sailing through crisis with shared services
Centuria still in trouble at Fort Lee
The list for Best of Bergen 2009 is already up. Drawn up by the premier magazine 201.net, this lists brings forth an exciting mix of food, beverages, hotels and other hangouts from across the county. The vote for Bergen’s best kept secret goes to the Glen Rock digital photo which continues to give its customers intricately designed cards for all occasions. The butterfly bake shop in Tenafly and the Sweet Avenue Bake Shop, also of Tenafly were tied up for the position of best bakery. For those who like to dine out, Campania of Fair Lawn, Mr. Wok of Tenafly and Lotus Café of Hackensack were voted for Best Bergen Restaurants. Among these, Campania of Fair Lawn was noted for its excellent offering of Italian food in a home style friendly environment while Mr. Wok gives the best hot and sour soup ideal in winter months. The places for best brunch and best burger go to Shelly’s café of Teaneck and Noah’s ark restaurant and Deli, again of Teaneck. A more detailed list can further be availed at the site.
Luxury housing market struggles
While the housing market continues to be at an all time low, there continue to be many luxury homes selling at high prices. One such home is the luxury home of Franklin Lakes, located in Bergen County. This home was noted to sell for a record sum of $1,968,000. Adding the home buyer’s premium of 6% (charged for auctioned properties) will make the home cost $2.1 million. While this amount was much more than the minimum bid of $1.75 million it was much lower than the asking price of $3.5 million. The house was sold at an auction that was conducted by the firm David R Maltz and Co Inc of Plainview in New York. The luxury home stretches over an acre of property and comprises of 7000 sq ft of housing space. The home comes with a three car arae, six bedrooms, six baths, two powder rooms and also a wood paneled library. With a slow housing market, most luxury home builders are struggling to find buyers for luxury housing properties. While towns like Alpine still continue to sell luxury homes at good prices, towns such as Saddle River and Franklin Lakes still have to struggle to get the right buyers.
For those seeking a stately home in Alpine, this town has quite a few options to choose from. While the price range is on the higher side, one can expect to live a luxury life in stately mansions. One can also expect the best neighborhood on offer. One interesting home on sale in Alpine is a three bedroom and one and half bath colonial mansion. This home has a tiled entry and also comes with a garage that can fit up to four cars. With an asking price of over $450,000, this home also has a tiled eat in kitchen and a dining room. Another home listed for higher prices is a five bedroom and four bath contemporary cedar construction. Listed at approximately $999,000, this home comes with hardwood floors, central vacuum and fireplace. It also has an in-ground heating pool and hot tub.
Sailing through crisis with shared services
As taxes loom their ugly large head on the various residents of Bergen County, and the economic crisis takes the nation spiraling downwards, many feel that cooperation could show the right way out of the bad situation. Few have set the process into practice, and examples of cutting costs through sharing services can be seen. For example, a few school districts are proposing to share services with their borough in order to cut costs. Services that are being proposed for sharing include information technology, cleaning, purchasing, insurance, building and even round maintenance. Few boroughs such as that of Harrington Park are even considering to merge their building department with that of Norwood and Northvale. Borough officials of various towns feel that any small move such as this would greatly benefit town residents. Many town residents also share the similar opinion that every single bit in saving can help the nation ease out of its crisis situation as quickly as possible.
Centuria still in trouble at Fort Lee
As investors try to recover $90 million in debt from the Centuria project, many are concerned that this mixed use development soon faces foreclosure. The project which began in Fort Lee over ran into high clean up costs by former owners who were the Town and County developers. The Bergen County sale now being planned will involve sale of the western half of the property. This region in itself will secure $31 million worth of debt for the owners. Approximately 7.9 acres will be sold from a total of 15.7 acres of Centuria at an auction. The Fort Lee property has had a long history of trouble that began during the 1970s when a developer had begun to buy up properties to form the large acreage. However his effort at that time had ended sadly as he was accused of bribing Fort Lee’s mayor at that time.
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