The former VNA headquarters building on Riverside Avenue has been acquired by an office developer. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s municipal coffers are about to be bolstered by the addition to the tax rolls of a major office building.
“It is now taxable,” Mayor Pasquale Menna said Wednesday about the former VNA Health Group headquarters, following a report by app.com that the property had been acquired by a private developer for $7.4 million.
Saxum also owns 55 Broad Street, where it plans to create new office space (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The three-story building, at 176 Riverside Avenue, is assessed at $4 million, though the VNA, as a nonprofit, was exempt from taxes. Had it been taxable, the site would have generated close to $90,000 in revenue last year for borough purposes.
The buyer was Saxum Real Estate of Parsippany-Troy Hills, app.com reported. Anthony Rinaldi, a principal in the firm, declined to diclose. plans for the 38,000-square-foot office structure. No plans had yet been filed with the borough planning office, an employee there said.
The property offers a “unique opportunity to transform a vacant, underutilized building into best-in-class product that further benefits the residents and overall community,” he told redbankgreen by email Thursday.
In December, 2016, Saxum bought the former Smith Barney building at 55 Broad Street, for $4 million. In promotional materials, it touts the site as the Vault, a multi-tenant office building. No plans for that project have been filed yet either, borough officials said.
Menna said he is “extraordinarily happy to have Saxum in town on their second major investment in Red Bank.”
Saxum’s employees “bring creativity, resources and a vision for Red Bank, which we need in increasing our tax base,” he said. “They are leaders in our state in clean development utilizing the most advanced plans in environmental design.”
VNA, formerly the Visiting Nurse Association, moved out of the building in early 2017, relocating its headquarters to Holmdel.
