ABSECON – The bank that financed Visions at the Shore appears to be having second thoughts about the viability of the project.
Three representatives of Amboy Bank spoke at the Thursday, May 6 City Council meeting suggesting the project might seek council’s approval to continue development without its 55-and-over age restriction.
Jack Plackter, an Atlantic City attorney representing the bank, Jeff Otteau, president of Otteau Valuation Group in East Brunswick, and Steve Patron, president of Paradigm Realty Alliance of East Windsor and Philadelphia, told members of council and spectators that the “active adult community” concept isn’t selling as well as expected.
“The idea was that baby boomers would be retiring with unprecedented wealth and retiring earlier,” said Otteau, a trend analyst who did most of the presentation. “None of that has come to be. Instead there is a narrow, shallow pool of buyers.”
People are leaving New Jersey at the rate of  50,000 a year, he said.
“They’re getting older and living on fixed incomes,” Otteau said. “They can’t pencil out how to afford to stay here.”
So the trend now is aging in place, he said.
“The number of baby boomers projected to move has dropped from 60 percent to about 5 percent,” Otteau said. “Only 2.9 percent are moving to 55-and-older housing.”
The problem of marketing to a very small percentage of the population has been felt with Absecon’s Pinnacle project at the old Marsh School site and now at Visions, according to Otteau.
“The problem is not going away soon,” he said. “Generally lenders are unwilling to finance these projects. They’re not viable.”
Otteau said ending the 55-and-over restriction would open the project to a much wider market.
“It’s not likely to add to the school rolls,” he said. “Families with children will opt out of Visions. It’s not a family lifestyle.”
The housing sector is going to weaken, Otteau said. Boomers turning 65 will be turning 75 in a decade.
“In the trailing generation, birth rates fell,” he said. “Family sizes were about half as large. This won’t be enough to fill in the slack as baby boomers leave the state.”
Continuing Visions as an age-restricted community, it is sure to fail, Otteau said. Allowing residents of all ages would make the project fiscally viable.
Patron asked council members to be allowed to work with the city’s professionals to develop a plan. He was told to feel free to contact the city planner and engineer.
He said he didn’t know exactly what Visions might choose to do.
“We’re not there yet,” Patron said. “I couldn’t tell you tonight what this needs to be successful.”
He said he expected to have a plan within 30 days.
Patrick Sheeran, who was on the Absecon Zoning Board when it approved the project,
said it seems like Amboy Bank made a bad business decision.
“To get relief, they went from the Zoning to the Planning Board,” he said. “They increased the density 60 percent. They went from stately refined units to something I would liken to the Clubs at Galloway where there are lots of families and lots of crime.”
The project approved by the Zoning Board was seen as a tax boon with no schoolchildren and little need for police services, he said.
“They may say families wouldn’t move in if the age restriction were lifted,” he said. “But they’re right across the street from the school. Most families look to live as close to a school as possible.”
Bob Wenz, owner of the Dairy Queen and an Absecon resident, said he opposes ending the project’s age restriction.
“I pay taxes twice – as a resident and as a business owner,” he said. “I think we should be very concerned.”
City Attorney Michael Blee said he didn’t want the public to panic.
“Anything that would happen at that site would have full public hearings and go through a thorough process,” he said.
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