Rumson officials last night moved closer toward replacing the town’s Memorial Hall with a contract award for parking lot work, today’s Asbury Park Press reports.

The Borough Council also voted to bond an additional $1 million for the overall project, now forecast to cost $6.5 million, to cover the expense of incorporating the police station into the new complex, the Press reports.

From the story:

The council approved a contract with Lucas Construction Group Inc. of Old Bridge, which had the lowest bid of $375,016 out of 10 companies bidding on a project to relocate the current borough hall parking lot.

The bid came in lower than the engineer’s $411,000 estimate to build a new parking lot and prepare the old lot as a construction site, said Thomas Rogers, borough administrator.

That work could take an estimated four to eight weeks, he said.

Plans call for the new building to be constructed on the site of the current municipal building parking lot next to the 1870-vintage Memorial Hall, which will be demolished and that site used as a parking lot. The new building will be similar in appearance to Memorial Hall.

Doing the project that way saves about $500,000 that would have been spent for temporary borough offices, Rogers said.

The council also approved amending a bond ordinance by $1 million, to $7.9 million, for the construction of Memorial Hall and inclusion of the police station in the municipal complex. Officials expect to recover that money when the land that the current police station is on is sold as two buildable lots.

Officials expect to award a contract for the construction of the new municipal bonding at the April 8 meeting to Benjamin R. Harvey Company Inc. of Ocean Township, which could begin working in May, Rogers said.

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