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East Rutherford is getting a new athletic complex. The years-in-the-making project — with a price tag north of $9 million — is expected to include several fields, water parks, dog parks and playgrounds.
Though the project, known as the Lois Lane Athletic Complex, has been in the works for years, it’s not set to open any time soon. And the borough doesn't own the property where the new facility is planned. It will use eminent domain to acquire the property from a handful of owners.
Among those owners is Fred Daibes, who is perhaps better known these days for his conviction on federal felony bribery charges alongside former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez.
Daibes was also found guilty in another federal case — involving bank fraud — and used the East Rutherford land, at 10 Morton St., as collateral in 2018. At that point, he had already been fighting with the borough for nearly a decade over the development of the 3.8-acre plot, which previously was the site of industrial warehouses.
The complications with the properties and East Rutherford's intentions to use eminent domain to acquire them hasn’t stopped the Legislature from sending ample funding to the Bergen County borough, though.
Resolutions sponsored by state Sen. Paul Sarlo have sent $5.5 million to the project over the last three years. Sarlo serves as the upper chamber’s budget committee chairman and is also the mayor of nearby Wood-Ridge.
Christopher Eilert, chief of staff for Sarlo, said the Legislature has a pattern of “providing yearly appropriations to very large-scale projects” because they often require large parcels of land, which can be hard to come by and are expensive.
“When the mayor and council of East Rutherford came to us years ago to show us this concept they had, we were certainly familiar that the property was blighted and that it's really an eyesore on the town,” Eilert said. “We knew that there's multiple property owners and properties there that they're trying to put together … but knowing who the specific owners are or which properties are owned by who, we have no idea.”
Eilert noted that the senator has supported several similar projects to expand or upgrade athletic complexes elsewhere in the district as well, including in Rutherford and Carlstadt.
Gov. Phil Murphy declined to comment.
Former East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella has said Daibes had tried to sell the former industrial land to the town for years but didn’t want to allow borough officials on the property to check for possible site contamination.
East Rutherford officials did not respond to inquiries for comment.
10 Morton St.: What to know
The property at 10 Morton St. is officially owned through a limited liability corporation connected to Daibes that has been in court on the local and municipal levels for years seeking permits and variances to develop the property.
More than a decade ago, a New Jersey Superior Court judge approved a 76-unit affordable-housing plan for the property, and a contract was drawn up for the town to buy the land for $3.5 million — based on assumptions that it was not polluted in any way. That plan never came to fruition.
There was an order from a judge to develop affordable housing on the property, but more recently it has been the scene of a dispute between the owners and East Rutherford.
The borough intends to transform the vacant land into a park and athletic complex after acquiring it through eminent domain. That process allows East Rutherford to purchase private property for public use by providing compensation for the property.
In April, a jury determined that figure to be $4,950,000.
The state sent $500,000 for the project in the new 2026 fiscal year budget that went into effect at the beginning of July. The Legislature allocated $3 million for the project during fiscal year 2024 and another $2 million in fiscal year 2025.
According to the application for state funding, East Rutherford also received $500,000 from the Department of Environmental Protection and $2,496,355 in grants from Bergen County.
But construction hasn’t started yet. In an application filed to the state in 2023, the borough outlined a timeline that included three months for a design phase and two months for bidding and awarding the project to a developer, followed by a six-month period to construct the facility.
Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: [email protected]