{"id":7326,"date":"2020-02-12T02:44:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T07:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=7326"},"modified":"2020-02-12T02:44:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T07:44:53","slug":"mediator-hired-as-talks-continue-for-sale-of-joey-harrisons-surf-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2020\/02\/mediator-hired-as-talks-continue-for-sale-of-joey-harrisons-surf-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Mediator Hired as Talks Continue for Sale of Joey Harrison’s Surf Club"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The former Joey Harrison’s Surf Club property, March 12, 2019. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Negotiations are continuing into a new phase as Toms River township officials look to purchase the former Joey Harrison’s Surf Club property and turn it into a public beach and boardwalk.<\/p>\n

Ortley Beach residents have been heavily lobbying the township to purchase the property, and the state has committed to fund in upwards of $6 million for the project through the Blue Acres program, while Toms River officials said they will invest between $1 million and $2 million into improvements at the site. But the owner of the property, the Barcelona family, have not accepted the township’s appraisal of the site at $6.3 million, causing talks to stall.<\/p>\n

To break the deadlock, the nonprofit Ortley Beach Voters and Taxpayers Association agreed to hire a mediator at its own expense. Meetings have already been planned and will include township officials; OBVTA members said they are simply financing the mediation and not participating in it.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re about $1.2 million between what the Barcelonas want for the property and what the state and the township are willing to pay,” said Township Administrator Don Guardian.<\/p>\n

Ortley Beach residents are continuing their effort to lobby the township to buy the property.<\/p>\n

“This is vital,” said Annette Tomarrazzo, a Coolidge Avenue resident. “This is a gift to Toms River \u2013 a $6.8 million gift from the state of New Jersey. This may be the last public open space along the ocean.”<\/p>\n

Township officials say the property, which housed the legendary nightclub and a number of residential spaces, would be developed with a boardwalk which would connect the two portions that exist now. There would also be the opportunity for recreational space.<\/p>\n

“The desire is the same,” said Guardian. “The Barcelonas want it sold, the township wants to buy it, the state wants the township to have it. It\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime deal and we hope we can find a solution.”<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Negotiations are continuing into a new phase as Toms River township officials look to purchase the former Joey Harrison’s Surf Club property and turn it into a public beach and boardwalk. Ortley Beach residents have been heavily lobbying the township to purchase the property, and the state has committed to fund in upwards of $6 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,92],"tags":[472,19],"class_list":["post-7326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-ortley-beach","tag-joey-harrisons-surf-club","tag-ortley-beach-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/IMG_9059.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-1Ua","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}