Long-awaited complex near military base to proceed

For more than 15 years, Wrightstown officials eyed the shabby business strip at the entrance to Fort Dix and imagined a new downtown center.

"I've been the mayor for 10 years and would sit in the council and say, 'It's coming! it's coming!' and they'd look at me like I was crazy," borough Mayor Tom Harper said and laughed.

"Well, this time it really is coming."

The $60 million Patriot's Way-Wrightstown Center, a mix of office, retail, and hotel space, is expected to be under construction this summer, with the first building opening by about March 2011.

It's part of a wave of planned and current construction projects on or near the 60-square-mile Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington and Ocean Counties.

More than 42,000 air personnel, soldiers, Marines, Coast Guard members, civilians, and their families live and work in and around the base.

Many of them are seeing housing improvements as part of a $500 million base project involving the construction, renovation, and conversion of 2,400 units. More than 1,000 new homes already have been completed, and 450 others have been renovated.

Hundreds of millions in federal money have been spent on runways, hangars, and other buildings over the last few years.

And more projects are planned for several of the base's surrounding towns: Wrightstown, New Hanover, North Hanover, Pemberton Borough, Pemberton Township, and Springfield Township in Burlington County, and Lakehurst Borough and Manchester, Jackson, and Plumsted Townships in Ocean County.

A 333-page joint land-use study - completed last year and funded mainly by the Defense Department - provides recommendations to preserve the buffer zone around the base, improve traffic flow, reduce noise, encourage cluster housing developments, and coordinate business development.

A $750,000 Defense Department grant, approved last month, will pay for a $500,000 wastewater-management plan to help accommodate new development near the base, including Plumsted, New Egypt, New Hanover, North Hanover, and Wrightstown, said Mark Remsa, director of economic development and regional planning for Burlington County.

The grant also will fund a traffic-circulation study and a new manual to help improve communications between military and municipal officials.

"The base is our biggest employer," Remsa said. "We have to make everything work well with the military.

"It's changing how we do business, and all of that has to be brought out in the manual so mayors can call the right person on the base," he said. "That's the key - to make it easier to communicate."

The municipalities around the base have seen development and job creation spurred by investment there.

"There is a lot of opportunity for people in Burlington County" to find work in and around the base, said Kristi M. Howell-Ikeda, president of the Burlington County Chamber of Commerce. "The towns are getting business from the base, and people are being hired. The base is absolutely important to the economy of Burlington County."

One of the projects nearly shovel-ready is the Patriot's Way-Wrightstown Center, which will attract and serve the base population, as well as borough residents, said developer Matthew Haydinger of Saylor's Pond Associates L.L.C., which is building the long-anticipated makeover.

"We're excited to see this project progress despite the overall economic environment," he said.

The site slated for redevelopment was once a business strip of bars, a dry cleaner, a cab stand, an insurance office, record and liquor stores, and barber, pawn, and beauty shops.

In earlier times, the 1.2-square-mile town hosted thousands of 18-year-old draftees and recruits from World War I to the Persian Gulf War. But many of its shops closed in the 1980s and '90s after the fort lost its basic-training role and repeatedly faced the threat of closure.

With the joint base's future now more secure and the massive federal investment there, the borough of 800 can plan more confidently.

The 15-acre Wrightstown Center is expected to have an 80- to 120-room hotel and conference center; classrooms and offices for a soon-to-be-announced school of higher education; a two-story Lourdes Health System facility with a full array of medical care; and other office, retail, and restaurant space.

The developer has cleared nearly all the preconstruction-stage hurdles and will seek approval from the borough's Joint Land Use Board before going for building permits.

"This project really complements the needs of the base and provides tax ratables for the borough," said Harper, who owns a gas station across from the site on Fort Dix Street.

The Wrightstown Center is going "to be a nice focal point for the town," Haydinger said.