Asbury owners get $2.8 million in eminent-domain case | The Asbury ...  APP.com   June 30, 2011

 

ASBURY PARK — The owners of a beachfront property condemned for the city’s waterfront redevelopment received a $2.8 million award from a Monmouth County jury in late June, the owners’ attorney, Paul Fernicola, said.

Fernicola, who has represented a number of previous owners of Asbury Park waterfront properties, both in fighting the initial redevelopment plan a decade ago and in eminent domain cases since, said the award to Kingsley View Apartments LLC is the largest so far in Asbury Park’s eminent domain jury cases.

The owners of the property at 1201 Kingsley St., on the corner of Fourth Avenue, are Michael N. Kellner and Yaacov Gross, who bought the three-story building for $395,000 from the Lombard Investment Corp. in September 2000, just as the deteriorated waterfront was about to begin a revitalization.

Fernicola said the owners turned down an offer of $880,000 in March 2006 from Asbury Partners. Lawrence Shapiro, the lawyer for the city, said the owners had asked for $4.9 million for the property, so that the actual award is about halfway between the two ammounts.

The investors planned to convert three first-floor retail spaces and 18 apartments on the second and third floors of the building into condominiums. The owners had bought the building from a group tied to an earlier owner, the late Kenneth Lombardi of Allenhurst.

According to Fernicola, the new owners had spent $500,000 on renovation work on the building before the city halted the project in 2002 because the city intended to condemn the property on behalf of Asbury Partners, “which did not want to pay the added compensation had the owner been allowed to complete the project.”

The 21,755-square-foot building has since been razed. http://www.app.com/article/20110630/NJNEWS/306300078/Asbury-owners-get-2-8M-eminent-domain-case