photo by Boyd Loving
Fedruary 6,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the purpose of the garage from the very beginning seems to have been to build a commuter garage for NJT and Bergen County in Ridgewood ,moving to make the Village a transit hub
The Village of Ridgewood (the “Village”) is undertaking the construction of an $11.7M parking deck on Hudson Street (the “Project”). There are two ways the Village can finance this Project over a 25 year period. First, the Village can issue its own General Obligation Bonds (the “Village Bonds”). Second, the Village can finance the project through the Bergen County Improvement Authority (the “BCIA”), which would issue County of Bergen Guaranteed Lease Revenue Bonds (the “BCIA Bonds”). In either event, the Village will be responsible to pay 100% of the debt service on whichever bonds are issued. (https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/hudson/20160129BCIAFin.pdf )
the choice :
Transaction Costs: The model includes up-front fixed costs of issuance of $162,500 for the BCIA Bonds vs. $92,500 for the Village Bonds. These costs include typical municipal bond transaction fees such as bond counsel, financial advisor, auditor, credit rating agency, printing, etc. In addition, the analysis assumes the underwriter’s discount would be essentially the same under either scenario. The BCIA Bonds also include the upfront authority financing fee of 12.5 basis points (“bps”) of total par amount of BCIA Bonds, the annual authority administration fee of 5 bps based on the annual outstanding par amount of the BCIA Bonds and an annual trustee fee of $1,000. (https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/hudson/20160129BCIAFin.pdf )
as per usually the most expensive for Village Taxpayers is the best choice .
Going to the BCIA , once the money is approved, it tends to appear almost instantaneously, accruing interest long before the project can even get started. That is a significant reason to reconsider this plan or ploy and an excellent reason, if it does happen, not to ask for a cent more than is needed. But losing control over the way commuter spaces are priced is a huge problem and there are undoubtedly more.
There will be approximately 320 car garage. 4 levels. The mayor said in the last meeting that 2 levels may be dedicated to commuters. That’s about 160 cars for commuters. We currently already have one level, which is mostly used by Ridgewood commuters. Lets say the second level is used by Bergen County commuters at no extra money compared to Ridgewood commuters. So, 2 levels are either used by out of Ridgewood commuters or commuters who are already using this lot today without the garage.
With remaining 2 levels, we will get 160 new spot, presumably for non commuters. Cost – 12.3 million in new bond, 500K bond has been already spent + 450k already spent on environmental studies in 2014 & 2015 on this lot. = 13.25M.
That’s 82,800 for every new parking spot created for CBD. This assumes that the project will not go over the budget. With the way this council and village manager are spending the money, this is highly unlikely to stay in the budget.
