132 Business View Magazine - June 2016
ers; how can we preserve and create jobs; and how
can we create experiential learning opportunities for
the young people in our community in the areas of sci-
ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with
this asset right here in our backyard?’ We applied for,
and were approved for, a $3+ million bond from the
local government services division of the Department
of Community Affairs and were able to convince them
that our plan made sense for the short and long term
versus what they were trying to do which was to get us
to sell it.”
Another poorly managed, municipal asset was the
city-owned golf course. “East Orange is one of the few
municipalities in the state that owns and operates its
own golf course,” Taylor continues. “It was far from a
luxury item when I took office, as it was losing about
three or four hundred thousand dollars a year for the
last several years. And so we looked at how it was op-
erated and realized that it needed to be run more like
a business than like a Division of Recreation which is
where they had it in the organizational structure. Rath-
er than sell that asset, as again, the state tried to con-
vince me to do, we put together yet another plan that
made sense. (I always say: ‘If it doesn’t make dollars,
it doesn’t make sense.’)
“We were approved for a $6 million bond. We shut the
course down for the first year; we immediately com-
menced a redevelopment initiative where we totally
redesigned the entire 18-hole playing surface of the
course – new fairways, new tee boxes, new greens –
but we also added a driving range which did not ex-
ist in the prior configuration. And that driving range is
generating passive revenue at the course, which can
otherwise be described as free money. And now that
course, which was losing three or four hundred thou-
sand dollars a year, last year, we exceeded our rev-
enue projection.
“And we’re getting ready to start construction on a $3
million state-of-the-art clubhouse and restaurant/ban-
quet facility out there to capitalize upon the customer
Rendering of 315 South Harrison Street, one of more than a dozen new residential
buildings in the construction pipeline
