Dilapidated shopping plaza eyed for redevelopment

Sept. 7, 2004

By Ken Tarbous

EAST BRUNSWICK: For years drivers have been passing the blighted Meyer's Shopping Center on Route 18 south, wondering what happened to the once-vibrant strip mall that held popular sidewalk sales and auto shows.

The last two tenants of the run-down plaza are preparing to leave and the future of the property, owned by the Branciforte family, is still in question.

Large gas tanks have been removed from the ground near the shuttered Mr. Good Lube on the site of the dilapidated strip mall.

The Oreck Floor Care Center has plans to move on or about Sept. 15 to the former site of The Bridal Center across the highway.

The Middlesex County Republican Organization has its headquarters in the plaza next to Oreck.

"We know that ultimately we'll be moving out, we're not certain when that's going to occur," Joe Leo, the Middlesex GOP's chairman, said. "We are expected to be vacating fairly soon. We're hoping that we will not have to move until the election."

Even the last Atlantic City bus has left, now picking up its daily passengers at the nearby American Harvest Gourmet Market.

A 10-year-old appraisal puts the property's assessed value at $2.913 million, according to township records. A portion of the 18.4-acre tract, approximately 3 acres, is protected wetlands and has water easements and encroachments and cannot be developed because of land-use restrictions.

The 2003 township tax bill, sent to "C. Branciforte et al" at a post office box in Milltown, was $184,152.

Robert Rafano, an attorney representing an unidentified member of the Branciforte family -- the four siblings, Gene, John, Carmella and Carl -- confirmed the property is for sale.

"Extensive negotiations are going on with a prospective purchaser, which we hope will be concluded shortly," Rafano, a New Brunswick-based lawyer, said last week. "We're at a very critical stage."

Luigi Branciforte, a local banker and businessman who owned the property, died in August 1997 at 79, leaving the site to his children.

The family has not responded to requests to tell their story of dealing with the business interests since their father's death.

Rusted tanks from a gas station once located on the site and mounds of dirt covered by tarp, evidence of the excavation, can be seen from the highway.

The pothole-filled front parking lot of the shopping center, also known as the Grand Plaza Shopping Center, is littered with papers, empty cigarette packs and other trash.

The rear lot is strewn with plastic garbage bags, empty soda bottles and other debris and has become a hidden parking spot for at least one tractor-trailer.

Faded signs -- some with exposed fluorescent lights -- for GMI Designs Custom Furniture, the East Brunswick Pub and others are remnants of better days at the one-time shopping mecca, which opened in 1955.

Meyer's Discount Store was the centerpiece, selling dolls, toys and bicycles to generations in the local community. The toy store, founded in New Brunswick in 1914, held its 60th anniversary celebration in 1974, an event featuring an antique-car show and a three-day outdoor sale by the 15 stores at the plaza.

Today, the tall highway sign, visible up and down Route 18, is barren except for the Oreck Floor Care Center enticement to sales and service for the vacuum-cleaner and air-purifier dealer.

Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey Inc. is the exclusive agent marketing the property for sale, the real-estate company confirmed. David Bernhout of C&W referred questions to the owners' representative for the sale, James F. Hyland, a judge and attorney based in East Brunswick.

Hyland, said to be a family friend of the owners, did not return numerous calls over the past year seeking comment.

Calls to New Brunswick-based attorney Carl Branciforte, one of the properties' owners, seeking comment were not returned.


The 57,600-square-foot one-story strip mall, fronted by the Mr. Good Lube building, has about 350 parking spaces, according to promotional materials from C&W's East Rutherford office. Rent on the Oreck space is $2,000 per month and the Mr. Good Lube location rent was in excess of $3,600 per month, according to C&W materials.

"That's probably the last great site available in East Brunswick," Adrian Kroll, president of Kroll Commercial Realty, said Wednesday. "The most desirable highway to be on in the Central Jersey area is Route 18."

The property could easily fetch $1 million per acre, even up to $1.4 million per acre, and would make sense for a retailer that needs to be on Route 18, he said.

"If somebody wants to be here, there's not a lot of choices." The tract, with 15.4 acres available for redevelopment, could sell for more than $20 million at that rate.

Kroll, whose East Brunswick firm has brokered more than $20 million in sales so far this year, said his office constantly gets calls about the Meyer's Shopping Center.

" 'I can't believe somebody has kept that site vacant that long.' This is what I hear daily," he said.

Wal-Mart and Wegmans Food Markets are conspicuously absent from East Brunswick, he added.

"I see a national company coming in, one of the big boxes. I think that building has to be razed, and a brand-new, multimillion-dollar structure has to come in," said Kroll, who has run his commercial brokerage specializing in retail, office and warehouse space for 13 years. "We have a tremendous amount of capable buyers out there who are ready, willing and able to act."

The access along Summerhill Road, the jughandle onto Arthur Road, and the huge Route 18 frontage makes it a wonderful site for a retailer, he said.

On Thursday, East Brunswick Mayor William Neary, a Democrat, pledged to immediately investigate any property-maintenance issues at the site.

The mayor said using eminent domain to take the property is unlikely.

"I've been very reluctant to do that," he said. "Our retail corridor is so strong it doesn't need the heavy hand of government."

The mayor said there are many opportunities for land owners in town, pointing to Lowe's, which has received Planning Board approval for a home improvement store at the East Brunswick Plaza, near Kohl's and Circuit City.

Neary said he feels confident a full proposal for the Meyer's site eventually will come before the Planning Board.

"The township itself understands that the property is valuable, and we figure the private owners will be able to make a deal, they haven't done it yet," he said. "Meyer's isn't being forgotten." Ed Cohen, head of economic development for the township, has been keeping a watchful eye on the valuable piece of land.

"The property has been up for sale for 7 years," he said Wednesday.

He has heard dozens of times that the tract had been sold, he said, adding that just because tanks have been removed doesn't mean a sale is imminent.

"It's 7 years since this administration has been here," he added. "The month that we took office 7 years ago is when Meyer's (toy store) closed, and that thing's been going downhill."

The Summerhill Marketplace, home of the A&P Food Market, is another Branciforte family property suffering from vacancies -- two stores in the 83,856-square-foot center are empty.

The Daisy Fair, a spring benefit for a township-run program for children and adults with disabilities, had to be postponed until July because of negotiations between the Branciforte family and a Pennsylvania-based firm, organizer Ronnie Wisniewski said in July. Wisniewski said then that the parties should be near a closing date.

Retailers snap up prized space

HOME NEWS TRIBUNE
September 7, 2004

By Ken Tarbous

EAST BRUNSWICK: A Lowe's home-improvement store is coming to town, more proof that the Route 18 retail corridor is one of the most sought-after locations in the state, real-estate experts say.

"It's the law of supply and demand," said Adrian Kroll, president of Kroll Commercial Realty. "There are little sites on 18 that are going for twice what they did four or five years ago."

The limited amount of available rental retail space and land for sale contributed to the rise, Kroll said, and spots on Route 18 are very desirable.

"People from Marlboro, Manalapan, Old Bridge, and even Colts Neck take 18 to get to the Turnpike in the morning." Kroll represents the owners of the old Quality Auto store property. A 5,000-square-foot center is planned there, and two of the three stores have been leased, he said Wednesday.

"We're getting very high rents here, higher than I had anticipated." The names of those two tenants were not available.

Arte Kitchens, a high-end store, also has signed a lease for an 8,000-square-foot space at 280 Route 18, near Gabowitz TV & Appliance Co., Kroll said.

Kroll, whose East Brunswick firm brokers commercial sales and leases, helped bring to town a new 100-room Holiday Inn Express on Naricon Place behind the Brunswick Hilton at Tower Center and a 66-room Comfort Suites on Old Bridge Turnpike, both expected to open in the fall.
Business is indeed booming along the five-mile stretch of highway in the township, Mayor William Neary said.

"Right now our biggest problem in East Brunswick is trying to find enough places to accommodate the businesses that want to move in," the mayor said Thursday.

As evidence of the thriving business environment, Neary pointed to successes such as the renovations at the Mid State Mall, the $15 million makeover at Brunswick Square Mall, and the arrival in town of Kohl's and Best Buy since he's taken office.

More recently, Lowe's has received Planning Board approval for a store at East Brunswick Plaza, near Kohl's and Circuit City.

The township is about to begin modifications to improve traffic flow at the intersection of Route 18 and Tices Lane that will help local businesses, Neary said.

Patrick Delaney is a real-estate veteran with Jeffery Realty, a firm representing Mid State Mall and Village Green East on Route 18.

"Route 18 is a good regional market," Delaney said. "It has good, strong demographics, and also it's a heavy commuter road."

Delaney, whose company specializes in leasing, sales and development of retail property, also said available space is limited on the Route 18 corridor.

The 377,211-square-foot Mid State Mall, where Best Buy, ShopRite and Borders are located, is 100 percent occupied, Delaney said Thursday.

"Probably for the first time in 15 years," he added. "The owner there did a phenomenal job, renovated it, made it attractive, made deals with national tenants." Village Green East, home to Vitamin Shoppe, also is 100 percent occupied, he said.

Jeffery Realty, based in North Plainfield, also represents the 18 Central Shopping Center on Route 18, where the Gap is located.

Office Depot is doing construction on the old Kids R Us space and plans to open in October, Delaney said. A gourmet grocer has signed a lease for The Wiz space and a dessert shop has taken the space formerly occupied by Wells Fargo Financial, next to the Gap.

The former storefront of Party City, 12,800 square feet, and the Office Max space, 33,000 square feet, are still vacant, he said, and talks are proceeding with potential tenants, including a seafood restaurant.

A proposed $30 million redevelopment of the Golden Triangle -- a 31-acre parcel that includes Sam's Club, the Transportation and Commerce Center and the Route 18 Market -- is in the works.

N.J. pension system considered a dinosaur

Home News Tribune
5/10/05

By KEN TARBOUS
Gannett New Jersey

In the back offices of the state Treasury Department, a small, nondescript division has had a huge impact on the state's public pension funds.

In a little more than two years, the state Division of Investment lost nearly $18 billion - enough to run New Jersey government for six months.

Those losses, along with diminished investment returns, have forced state taxpayers to contribute nearly $200 million to the pension system this year and an expected $1.5 billion in next year's budget, which could be spread over five years.

New Jersey is a dinosaur among pension funds, the lone state that has bureaucrats rather than outside investment professionals managing billions of dollars each day.

Even after the disastrous loss of $18 billion from first-quarter 2000 to July 2002, changes that would make the division more efficient and more responsive to moves in the market have been slow, according to state Treasurer John E. McCormac.

McCormac blamed an archaic system and the State Investment Council, the division's board of directors that oversees the pension investments, for the extended period of losses that drained the once self-sufficient state pension fund from a high of $85 billion in March 2000 to $68.9 billion today.

“There was a reluctance to change. It was ‘buy and hold,’ and it was ‘stay the course.’ Quarter after quarter of negative results was met with, ‘Don't worry. It's only temporary,’” McCormac said. “But three years of bad performance is not temporary.”

James W. Karamanos, 60, of Highland Park is a part-time substitute teacher not enrolled in the state pension system. He's been following the debate over retirement financing and is unhappy with the state’s pension fund.

“Whether it was the bad investments or not, I'm not too pleased,” Karamanos said. “As a taxpayer that directly affects (me).”

He acknowledged the value of his own investments has been drastically reduced in recent years, but he thinks the state must change its outlook.

“The situation leaves something to be desired. We are not fiscally responsible, whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats,” Karamanos said.

State, county and municipal employees, teachers, police and firefighters pay about 5 percent of their salaries into the pension fund system, which invests the money.

Regulations and laws limit the investment portfolio. The fund's market value constantly changes. Portfolio gains and losses are combined with money flowing in from participants and the state, then are paid out in benefits.

As of June 2004, the state's pension fund was invested 66.5 percent in stocks, 26.4 percent in bonds and fixed income, 5 percent in cash, and 2.1 percent in mortgages.

A survey by the California-based investment-consulting firm Wilshire Associates found the median asset allocation of public pension funds to be 62.3 percent in stocks, 26.3 percent in bonds, 3.4 percent in cash, and 2.6 percent in alternative investments as of Dec. 31, 2004.

New Jersey's taxpayers have to support the fund if its return on investments drops below a five-year average of 8.25 percent per year. As of June 2004, New Jersey's five-year average return was 1.5 percent. The median in the Wilshire study was 3.66 percent over that same period.

The investment division, founded in 1950, and the investment council barely acknowledged widely accepted practices of investment and risk management, putting the money mostly in stocks, according to McCormac.

When the S&P 1500 Index, a large group of stocks used to measure how the overall markets are performing, plunged in the early part of this decade, so did the value of the pension fund.

“That's insane,” said Sheryl Gaugler, 50, of North Brunswick, a secretary at Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick. “We're a rich state, and we can't manage our money?”

Changes pushed

McCormac is pushing for investment diversification and external money managers to increase returns. He wants to move billions of dollars, up to 13 percent of the overall portfolio, out of stock and bonds and the hands of division employees.

McCormac's plan calls for placing that money into alternative investments like real estate and privately owned companies, using the services of private, fee-based investment managers.

The $17.9 billion collapse over two years – nearly a fifth of the total pension fund - and the condition of the pension funds' investment portfolio are the fault of arcane rules and procedures left in place from previous councils and administrations, McCormac said. The council does not invest the money, but rather, is meant to ensure the integrity of the division.

As an example of how poorly the system functioned, McCormac said, the department would meet each Tuesday on “trading day,” deciding which stocks to sell that week and leaving the funds at the risk of the markets' fluctuations for relatively long periods of time.

Bill Clark, the division's new director, said some criticism of the council’s operations is valid.

“In hindsight, it’s probably fair. We had a very good run in the ’90s, and we had pretty big positions (owning millions of shares of one company) in some tech stocks in particular,” said Clark, who has been at the division since 1999 and took over as division director in March. “We probably should have been more aggressive in taking some of those chips off the table.”

But a former division director said selling stocks is not that easy for the state.

The division may hold hundreds of millions of dollars in shares in a particular company, and selling off such a huge amount at once can drive the stock price down.

To stop such a sudden impact, it might take up to 20 days for the state to sell blocks of shares without disturbing the market, said Steven E. Kornrumpf, who served in the Division of Investment from 1971 to 2002. He spent six years as the deputy director and his last four as director.

For example, in the spring of 2001, as shares of New Jersey-based Lucent Technology Inc. nose-dived, the division took 30 days to sell 5.915 million shares at a loss of more than $35 million.

On March 20, 2001, the first sale of 200,000 shares was made at a price of $12.58 each, the highest sale price the state received over the period. The state’s sale price slid to a low of $7 on April 17, 2001. The last sale of the bulk of shares was made for $7.59 per share on April 18, 2001.

State policy defended

But all the finger-pointing by McCormac and current council members sounds like political rhetoric to Roland Machold, a former state treasurer and the director of the Division of Investment for 23 years before his retirement in 1998.

“It’s just dead wrong. We met once a week to make our major decisions,” said Machold, who served under both Democrats and Republicans. He came back as treasurer under Gov. Christie Whitman from 1999 to 2001.

The meetings would bring together all the brainpower of the division, but trading would go on throughout the week, he said. If special circumstances arose, such as adverse stock news or steep price drops, the director or deputy director could make decisions between meetings, he said.

“Remember, we're making long-term investments,” he said. "We were not traders; we were investors.”

Despite ups and downs in market value, the fund has a long life, with money deposited for workers today set to be withdrawn 30 or 40 years in the future, Machold said.

“Volatility over that period of time averages out. If you took the full period, the volatility would be minuscule. That's the reason we were willing to do that,” Machold said.

He presided over much of the fund's windfall years when the market value more than doubled, from $36 billion in 1994 to $85 billion in 2000. By the end of 2002, it had retreated to $58 billion.

Soon after arriving in Trenton, the McGreevey administration cleaned house at the top levels of the division and the council.

In September 2003, Independent Fiduciary Services Inc., brought in by the state to review the division’s operations, called for an overhaul, making about 80 recommendations for changing and updating procedures and policies.

The independent study recommended adding staff. The division handles $68.9 billion with only seven portfolio managers and 10 investment analysts, an addition of one each since the report.

Proposals for growth

Regulations still handcuff portfolio managers from selecting appropriate investment vehicles, according to McCormac. Nearly three years after its $17.9 billion loss, the division is undergoing a slow makeover to streamline procedures ranging from electronic trading to analysis of real-time financial data as suggested by the IFS report, he said.

McCormac said the state has difficulty attracting investment professionals because state employees’ income is based on salaries, not on commissions and bonuses that can top millions of dollars at private investment firms.

McCormac wants to allow outside managers to handle money and diversify the portfolio by placing money in investment classes such as private companies, hedge funds, and real estate that are riskier than stocks or bonds but sometimes have produced larger returns in recent years. When added to a portfolio of more conservative investments, these riskier investments can moderate losses in tough economic times.

“We knew the No. 1 issue was diversification early on,” McCormac said. “Every state around us, every state in the country, had implemented some form of diversification. We had not.”

In late 2002, Orin Kramer, a New York-based hedge-fund manager with significant investment experience, joined the Investment Council. He was named chairman in September.

“There is not another major fund in the United States which is 100 percent internally managed and has no alternative investments,” Kramer said.

Diversifying the portfolio by adding riskier asset classes would reduce overall risk to the pension fund, he said.

Since 2002, the current council has changed the trading and investment procedures to make the division’s work more visible and responsible to the public. As a result, the ups and downs of the fund’s value and the risk of loss have declined, Kramer said.

“The process didn't meet the standards that are expected of major public funds in terms of public disclosure,” he said.

Forcing managers to defend their work at regular meetings reduces risk, he contended. First-rate investors can lose money, he said, but that is not the standard by which investment professionals should be judged.

If 15 percent of the portfolio had been invested in alternative investments over the 10-year period ending last year, the state would have been $9.2 billion richer, Kramer said.

And it wasn't until Kramer's arrival in 2002 that the state became involved in shareholders- rights and corporate governance issues.

New regulations permitting the division to move money out of its control and to private investment firms are still pending, McCormac said.

But the view that outside managers can do a better job has drawn some heat, and there is disagreement as to how much latitude the council has and whether the Legislature has barred certain types or categories of investment.

The New Jersey Education Association, with its 188,000 members paying into the system and drawing pensions, has resisted some of the state’s actions and has filed two lawsuits against the state, NJEA spokesman Steve Baker said.

Baker contended that although the pension fund is sound, the state has not properly been paying its share.

Given the severity of the pension-fund crisis, which will become obvious over the next few years, the structure of the investment portfolio must change, Kramer said. “It would be derelict of fiduciaries to ignore everything everybody knows about modern investment theory.”

Jobs Promise Not Met

Home News Tribune
February 28, 2004

Edison plant's workers challenge claim of offer to transfer

By KEN TARBOUS
BUSINESS WRITER

EDISON: When Ford Motor Co. employee Bob Levy read the news yesterday, he got angry.

As a skilled tradesman, a pipefitter, at the automaker's Edison Assembly Plant, he hadn't been offered a transfer to a new job, contrary to what the company and the union local had said.

“I was offered absolutely nothing,” said the Edison resident, who has 25 years of service with the company, which ceased production in Edison Thursday.

Very few of the electricians, millwrights and pipefitters transfered to other Ford locations across the country, he said.

Levy, whose father retired after 30 years with Ford and whose brother is a 30-year employee, isn't happy with a layoff.

“I just want to work,” said Levy, 43, who made more than $100,000 last year with overtime. “I don't want to sit home and collect a free paycheck. I'd rather go and work.”

The father of two, who blames Ford executives in Michigan for his job problems, said he will get about half his weekly pay while on layoff. “It's a big pay cut for me.”

The United Auto Workers of America contract guarantees 95 percent of base pay, combining state unemployment and supplementary company benefits throughout the 40-week layoff period.

Alan Evans, human resources manager of vehicle operations at the Edison facility, conceded his statement that all employees at the Route 1 facility had the opportunity to transfer was “technically … not exactly accurate.”

“Technically, those 50 guys didn't get job offers; they're right,” Evans said.

Approximately 50 of the 260 Ford workers going on layoff Monday are skilled tradespeople, he added. About a dozen skilled workers previously took advantage of a limited number of job openings.

“The only people that really didn't get offered opportunities to go were the skilled tradespeople,” Evans said. “There were some limited opportunities, and some of them are transfering, but we didn't have enough opportunities for all of them to transfer.

“We're not happy with the fact that there aren't more skilled-trade openings,” Evans said. “We wish there were.”

Once on layoff, those skilled workers who had done production work would be able to take nonskilled work positions, according to Evans.

Thomas Gonzales, 33, of North Brunswick is a pipefitter who has worked for more than 11 years at the Ford facility.

He said he was offended by previous statements that all workers could have taken transfers. “It makes it seem like we're lazy and we don't want to go anywhere, when we weren't offered anything.”

Gonzales said he wants to work.

“I’d rather have a transfer, I don't want to collect unemployment,” he said. “I have no choice.”

The father of two, who makes $28 per hour, said some people have painted a rosy picture of the workers' benefits and job guarantees under the union contract, which ends in September 2007. “When you've got kids and a mortgage, it's not a good deal.''

Tony Capriglione, benefits representative for UAW Local 980, also confirmed what the skilled tradespeople said about the lack of transfer opportunities.

“It's not just us,” Capriglione said. “Unfortunately, there are skilled tradespeople all over the country sitting (on layoff).”

Local 980 President Jim Shaw has said a job was available for every worker who wanted one. He was quoted in yesterday's edition of the Home News Tribune as saying, “We could have taken care of all of our members.” He was not available for comment yesterday.

Ford announced in 2002 that it would cease production at the Route 1 facility as part of a reorganization plan.

Of the more than 800 workers from the plant, 750 hourly and 93 salaried, 350 have retired and 150 have taken jobs at one of 11 other Ford facilities, all in the United States.

As part of the realignment, the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker has shifted production of the Ford Ranger and Mazda B-Series compact pickups from Edison to its St. Paul, Minn., factory.

The Edison plant had been putting out 288 vehicles a day beginning last year. Since 1949, when the first Lincoln-Mercury models were built in Edison, more than 6.8 million vehicles have been produced there.

Shares of Ford (F) close up 9 cents at $13.75 on the NYSE yesterday.

Sports companies teaching lessons

Home News Tribune
Monday, September 25, 2006

By KEN TARBOUS
STAFF WRITER

Sports and athletics aren't just about getting the win or taking the top spot in the standings.

"For fun and teamwork and good sportsmanship and good character development, those are all good reasons to participate in youth sports," said Sally Johnson, executive director of Florida-based National Council of Youth Sports, an industry group looking out for youth sports organizations such as Little League Baseball and Pop Warner Little Scholars.

Johnson said young people join athletic activities because they want to have fun and be with their friends.

"But while they're doing that, they're not only are being physically active but they are learning skills for life, skills they can take with them on and off the field," she said. "There's good social skills and character building that take place while they're learning the Xs and Os."

The council's 2000 survey on youth sports trends and participation found more than 38 million kids, 18 years old and younger, involved in some form of organized sports programs. Of that total, about 63 percent were boys and 37 percent were girls.

In Central Jersey, there's no shortage, either, of enterprises, from former coaches to corporations, providing young athletes with training and instruction in the fundamentals that build character and make champions.

Head over Heels Gymnastics, Dance & Cheer Center, in Sayreville and Middletown, caters to clients 18 months to 18 years old, providing classes and instruction in gymnastics, dance and cheerleading and adults in some dance classes.

Gail Boyce, president of Head over Heels, is a former competitive gymnast, and most staff members are former and present gymnasts, coaches and cheerleaders.

"Our main goal is to teach children that learning is fun, to equate taking on a challenge with being able to accomplish it instead of seeing a challenge and being afraid to try," Boyce said.

In business for 25 years, Head over Heels has its share of fierce competitors, like world-class trampolinist 16-year-old Steven Gluckstein, who trains with Russian champ Tatiana Kovaleva at the Middletown gym.

But for many of the other 2,000 students who visit Head over Heels each year in both locations, competition isn't the motivator.

"For your regular once-a-week students it's the activity of gymnastics, it's not really the sport of gymnastics," she said. "It's a physical activity. They're learning some coordination and building strength for physical fitness. We just use the venue of gymnastics."

At the younger ages, the make up of classes is usually close to 50/50 boys and girls, Boyce said, but most older students are girls.

"Gymnastics is a good basis for any sport," Boyce said. "The boys, if they've decided not to be gymnasts, they've done the stretching (and) coordination thing in order to to be good or better than they would have been at baseball, football, or whatever sport they choose."

Classes usually run in 8-week "terms," starting at $92 per term, with other programs and levels of instruction and coaching available.

Families across the region are more than willing to commit their resources to help their young athletes and players improve their skills.

Frank Grippo brings his 13-year-old son to the Basketball Shooting Academy in Edison because his boy likes to play ball.

The younger Grippo, Greg, a seventh-grader at St. Matthew the Apostle in Edison, signed up for 20 half-hour lessons at a cost of $400. He's not alone.

Since BSA opened this summer, more than 100 individuals and 20 teams have signed up for coaching sessions or to use the half and full courts, shooting and rebounding guns, and other equipment designed to improve a player's game, said Mike Allocco, BSA's owner and a former NBA player.

Instruction focuses on repetition and muscle memory, with analysis and ball-return equipment that can help shooters manage up to 1,500 shots per hour.

"You really can see the results," Allocco said, pointing to certain players who've upped their shooting accuracy from 35 percent to 75 percent using the intense coaching and documentation provided by BSA's staff of former pro players, high school coaches and other basketball people.
BSA lessons run from $35 per half-hour to full court rentals of $100 per hour.

But if young boys or girls in his programs don't show passion for the game, Allocco said, he doesn't want to take parents' money.

Addressing expectations, then, is important.

"You're definitely going to be better when you leave," he said. "I'm not going to say you're going to play in the NBA."

The elder Grippo said the basketball lessons' value goes well beyond sports, helping the teen build leadership qualities.

"I just try to put him in the best position I can to give him the benefits wherever he plays," Frank Grippo said.

Sean Economou, director of indoor baseball and softball training facility All Pro Academy in Edison, said parental demands aren't the problem they might have been in the past.

"We tell them right in the initial signup that it is quite unrealistic to think that their son or daughter can come in for one or two lessons and be fixed and be a .400 hitter. It doesn't work that way," Economou said. "I think there are enough of these facilities out there, and enough of the whole lesson concept out there. Most people are pretty realistic."

Getting instruction takes a commitment of time and money. All Pro has lessons and clinics to develop offensive, defensive, pitching, catching skills for boys and girls starting at age 4 starting at $40 a half-hour or 10 lessons at $325.

Jack Cust Baseball Academy in Flemington is often-cited by many in the baseball-instruction community as one of the most popular softball and baseball training facilities in the region.
Over at the Baseball Warehouse Instructional Academy in Highland Park, Director Kevin Connolly said serious-minded players are usually the ones who sign up for instruction.

"Ninety-nine percent of the kids love it. They get to play the game they love," Connolly said.
Marc Moreau, owner of Leading Edge Lacrosse in Far Hills, said that sport is exploding in popularity with high schools adding varsity programs every year, at last count 145 school teams statewide.

Leading Edge runs camps, clinics, leagues, and travel teams and creates, produces and sells instructional lacrosse videos.

With 35 coaches — most former Division I college players, and many from past and present teams at Rutgers University — and the majority coaching at youth or high school level, Leading Edge has seen more than 2,000 boys a year.

"We start them as young as 4 years old in a program we call Mini Laxers, which is a very basic introduction to lacrosse, all the way up to our most high-profile program, our elite travel teams for the summer," said Moreau, the head coach at St. Joseph High School in Metuchen and a former two-time All-America at Rutgers.

Leading Edge, started by Moreau five years ago, enrolls middle schoolers who play in rec leagues and high school seniors.

Leading Edge creates training and instruction programs for boys in kindergarten through fourth grade because countless young athletes go into other sports.

"Now with soccer being almost a spring sport at the youth level, and Little League baseball being there, and the fact that you can start those sports at much younger age . . . by the time these kids get to fifth grade they're entrenched in soccer or baseball."

For the Mini Laxers program, 4- to 6-year-olds, usually the parent played lacrosse at some point in their life. "They want to get their kid introduced to lacrosse, but more than anything they just want them to have fun," Moreau said.

In instructional leagues, and travel teams that require tryouts, parents are looking for a solid grounding in the fundamentals and a higher level of coaching and play than in other youth programs, Moreau said.

Lacrosse is where soccer was about 20 years ago, Moreau said.

Holding back lacrosse's popularity is the cost of equipment, which at about $300 to get outfitted head to toe, is prohibitive for many players, he said.

But money or skill don't necessarily relate to the fun and enjoyment players get from another sport. All Pro's Economou said the academy is considering a new league for adults still interested in taking the field.

"Basically about every single guy I've spoken with, I mention the words "Wiffle Ball' and their eyes pop out of their head and they say: "Do it. Get it running.' "

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