Like all mayors, Mike Ghassali of Montvale is eager to have new companies bring vacated properties back to life — and back into the tax base.
In Montvale, there was no bigger hope than to find a new tenant for the large campus on Summit Avenue that served as the home for approximately 200 Western Union employees before the company consolidated its operations elsewhere in the years following the pandemic.
But when the first proposal came for more townhomes, Ghassali was not exactly celebrating.
“There were plans for hundreds and hundreds of townhomes on this property,” he said. “We didn’t need that.”
Ghassali was hoping for better.
Earlier this month, there was a groundbreaking for something better.
The site is being redeveloped into Montvale Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center, a 185,878-square-foot, 180-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility.
For Ghassali, the difference between that outcome and a few hundred new townhomes is huge.
“It’s not only the business, not only the clients who are going to be living here — it’s their families,” he said. “When they come to visit their families, they’ll be dining here, they’ll be shopping here, they’ll go to our stores. That’s what’s so exciting about the use itself.”
There is one other win: It won’t impact the school system with an influx of kids it may struggle to accommodate, Ghassali said.
“They still pay taxes, but unlike townhomes it doesn’t affect our schools, which is what we wanted,” he said.
That distinction — tax revenue without new school-age population — is at the center of why towns like Montvale increasingly view senior living and health care projects as a preferred alternative to residential development, particularly on large formerly corporate sites.
State Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-Montvale) framed the project as a rare example of getting that balance right.
“This is a prime example of a much-needed resource for our community, for our aging population, for the intensive growth that has taken place to the population just in the past five years,” Schepisi said.
“To be able to have a building like this be repurposed, that is a supplemental service to people who live here, rather than just mandating another thousand units on this property, is a prime example of what we do need — balance in how we are doing our regional approach for planning.”
The project also gives Montvale credit toward its affordable housing obligations under the state’s Mount Laurel doctrine, according to Ghassali, who said the site counts toward the borough’s third-round obligation.
Getting to this outcome wasn’t instant.
Ghassali said it took roughly a year from the town’s first contact with the project’s backers to a signed deal, which is fairly standard for a project of this scale. The developers looked at several versions of the plan before settling on one that kept and expanded an existing building on the site, rather than demolishing everything and starting over.
“Where this sits is off the road — people won’t see the construction going on, no sounds,” Ghassali said. “So, it was a win-win for everyone.”
The town is also coordinating infrastructure upgrades to support the project, including a new water tower being built on Summit Avenue to address existing water pressure issues on that side of town.
The tower is expected to be operational within a year; the facility itself is expected to take about 18 months to complete.
Schepisi said the win extends beyond the property line.
Montvale, like many New Jersey towns, has spent the past decade watching corporate headquarters relocate out of state, and officials there say attracting new investment — of any kind — has become a priority. She pointed to an influx of medical professionals and organizations that have chosen Montvale in recent years, including Valley Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering.
“It’s been a difficult decade of transition as we lost our global headquarters leaders because they couldn’t afford to continue doing business in the state of New Jersey,” Schepisi said. “But the mayor, council, the head of the planning board have been hyper-focused on bringing in additional businesses to provide jobs, to provide an ability of sustainability for everybody else who’s here.”
Both Ghassali and Schepisi noted that the project’s developer, NexGen Builders, is based in New Jersey, which they said simplified the process considerably compared with an out-of-state company unfamiliar with the state’s regulatory environment.
“They know how Jersey works,” Ghassali said. “That eases things, too.”
For a town that has spent recent years searching for the right redevelopment formula, Montvale officials say this one checks every box other towns are still chasing.
“This is a great day for Montvale,” Ghassali said.
For information about the Borough Of Montvale, go to montvalenj.gov.
