By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Ocean City’s public housing agency has pushed back the completion date of its nearly $7 million housing project for senior citizens by a month or two because of a delay in getting the elevators installed.
The Ocean City Housing Authority originally had been targeting May 1 as the completion date, but now expects the 32-unit complex to be finished by late June or early July, the agency said at its monthly board meeting Tuesday. Residents will occupy the three-story building in July.
Senior citizens who now live in the authority’s flood-prone Pecks Beach Village affordable housing complex on Fourth Street will be moved over to the new building when it is completed.
“It’s a landmark for the housing authority. It’s a landmark for the city,” City Council President Bob Barr, who also serves as chairman of the housing authority, said while praising the project in an interview after the board meeting.
Called Speitel Commons, the new building is located at the corner of Sixth Street and West Avenue, adjacent to Bayview Manor, another housing authority complex. Barr said it will include “all the bells and whistles” for the senior citizens who live there.
“The residents are looking forward to moving in,” he said.
At this point, the project is more than 80 percent finished. With May 1 fast approaching, the authority realized that it would not be able to hit that “ambitious” target date for completion, Barr explained.
Rick Ginnetti, a housing authority consultant who is helping to oversee the $6.9 million project, cited a delay in getting the elevators installed as the reason for pushing back the completion date to June or July.
“That was our biggest concern in getting this finished,” Ginnetti said of the elevator work.
The contractor, Schindler Elevator Corp., was originally supposed to begin working at the site in late February or early March. The elevators were finally delivered to the building on Monday and will not be ready for another 30 days, Ginnetti told the board members.
Schindler previously blamed the pandemic for slowing down production at its factory, which in turn caused delays with its work in Ocean City.
Meanwhile, the rest of the construction work is rolling along smoothly under the supervision of the general contractor, Gary F. Gardner Inc. of Medford, N.J. All of the units now have electricity and will have water service by the end of the week, Ginnetti said.
Final “punch out” items that must be done before the building is considered finished are currently scheduled for May, but likely will need to be extended to June, Ginnetti added.
In 2019, City Council approved a $6.6 million bond ordinance to build or rehabilitate affordable housing sites for senior citizens and low-income families. The projects will help Ocean City meet its state-mandated obligation to provide its “fair share” of affordable housing as part of a court settlement in 2018.
The city is expected to contribute more than $2 million toward the Speitel Commons project, while the New Jersey Housing Mortgage and Finance Agency is providing $4.5 million in funding.
Barr called the project an overall example of “good government.”
“It’s a credit to the mayor (Jay Gillian) and City Council all working together to make something happen the way it should,” he said.
The Ocean City Housing Authority provides affordable housing for senior citizens, families and the disabled. Ocean City residents, the elderly and people with disabilities are given preference for the housing.
The new building is named in honor of the late Edmond C. Speitel Sr., a housing authority commissioner who helped to oversee the project from the conceptual phase.
“This was his baby. This was his brainchild,” Barr said. “It is keeping the memory of Ed Speitel alive.”
In other business at the board meeting Tuesday, the authority received a “clean audit” of its financial operations.
Michael Garcia, a partner with the Ocean City accounting firm of Ford-Scott & Associates LLC, said during a presentation to the board members that the audit was a reflection of the financial turnaround the authority has made in recent years.
The authority changed its leadership and undertook a series of financial reforms after it removed its former executive director in 2017 following an embezzlement scandal. The executive, Alesia Watson, pleaded guilty to embezzling federal housing funds to pay credit card bills for personal expenses. She was sentenced to three years of probation.
Garcia, whose firm annually analyzes the housing authority’s finances, said the agency now has had three straight years of clean audits containing no negative findings.
In addition, the authority’s internal controls to prevent possible fraud or theft are “very strong” and working well, Garcia said. A series of operating and financial reforms were implemented by the agency in response to the embezzlement scandal.
