Vacant Neptune motel becomes home to raccoons, and neighbors want it gone now

NEPTUNE - Residents in the Shark River Island neighborhood want the township or county to do something about the vacant, storm-damaged motel that has been an eyesore in their community for over three years.

Resident Steven Mundorff remembers being out to dinner when a 2021 storm ripped the roof off the Route 35 Neptune Motor Lodge. He returned home to "like 50 emergency response vehicles on the street."

Years later, he has new neighbors — the raccoons who now call the empty motel home.

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"There was like five or six of them crawling up the walls of the motel that we know of," said Mundorff, a retired state trooper who moved into the neighborhood in June 2019.

Resident Steve Roberts said he reached out to the Monmouth County Health Department and County Commissioner Director Thomas A. Arnone for help because he feels left out to dry by the Neptune Township Committee.

"The bottom line, they keep saying stuff is in motion, and nothing has happened," Roberts said. "We've called the police so many times in the last couple months. They've had trespassers over there, graffiti over there. They have rodents and raccoons living in there and now they're coming onto our property."

In March 2021, a powerful storm tore off parts of the roof from the Route 35 motel, damage caused by straight line winds between 60 and 70 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Mount Holly .

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Soaked insulation, wood, tar paper and other pieces of the motel were stripped from the building and spread across the highway and surrounding properties as a result of the storm. While the debris was cleaned up, over three years later residents still are looking at the vacant building once known as the Neptune Motor Lodge.

Last summer, the owners of the former Neptune Motor Lodge, as well as the surrounding properties which include the Headliner nightclub and Sunsets Riverfront Bar and Restaurant, said they had big plans to redevelop the area with a 100-room hotel, a restaurant and apartments. The idea was championed by state Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, who had worked with neighbors complaining about the empty building .

One year since those plans were made public, and three years since the storm, the vacant motel still stands, with surrounding neighbors saying they wish it would just be torn down.

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"They talk about condos, restaurants, a rooftop bar, a riverwalk. Sounds great, I just hope they don't overcrowd. That (motel) is the last thing you see when leave Neptune and the first thing you see when come into Neptune," Mundorff said.

The township has submitted its comments on the proposed redevelopment plan to the joint venture group and is awaiting their feedback, according to township officials. With respect to the motel itself, the township regularly monitors the site to ensure compliance with required code/construction and general property maintenance standards, they said.

The motel owner, Bhaskar Halari, told the Asbury Park Press that "it is a slow process," before deferring to the township for any elaboration on the process.

"We are in communication with the town. We don't have any final outcome yet but we are talking to the town about the same thing," Halari said. "We are communicating. We are back and forth with the town giving them the information they are reviewing, and everything."

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Currently at the property there is a vacant property placard which is used to alert first responders, specifically firefighters, that the conditions inside the building may include some structural or interior hazards that limit traditional fire suppression or rescue tactics or render those tactics unsafe.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the structure is in bad enough condition that it must be demolished or condemned. The safety hazards indicated by these placards can be holes in the floor, missing fire escapes, missing or unsafe stairs, or open roofs among other potential safety hazards for emergency personnel, according to township officials.

The New Jersey code regarding “ unsafe structures ” lays out the criteria and process by which a municipal construction official and/or the appropriate subcode officials may deem a structure in such disrepair, or representing such an imminent hazard, that it must be demolished.

"The conditions of the motel property, while certainly not ideal, do not meet the standards for the township to compel condemnation/demolition at this time," said Gina LaPlaca, business administrator for the township. "If we were to order demolition, we would be required to reimburse the property owner for its value.

The township’s position continues to be that the best outcome for the property is for the proposed redevelopment process to move forward efficiently and successfully and to the ultimate benefit of the whole community," LaPlaca said. "In the meantime, we will continue to ensure that the motel owner is complying with the abandoned/vacant property law and all local ordinances relating to same."

Neighbors have less patience.

"The redevelopment is supposedly underway, but that is going to be years in the making and we keep saying this hotel is going to sit there for the next three or four or five years until they decide to take it down? And nothing has changed but now we have it infested with rodents, rats and raccoons," Roberts said.

Charles Daye is the metro reporter for Asbury Park and Neptune, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. @CharlesDayeAPP Contact him: CDaye@gannettnj.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Vacant Neptune motel becomes home to raccoons, and neighbors want it gone now