Opens talks on educational opportunities at former power plant site
PETERSBURG — The Beesley’s Point Development Group is making good on its promise to support local education, long before the first shovel goes in the ground for its planned bayfront hotel, marina, housing and retail project.
BPDG partner Dave Kreutz presented Upper Township School District Superintendent Allison Pessolano with a $5,000 check last week earmarked for the arts.
“This is just a donation for the schools to use in any way they want. We are happy to contribute and start the relationship off with a donation and a conversation,” Kreutz said.
“We can do a lot with that. We haven’t yet decided how to use it. No matter what, it’s going to benefit the schools and the kids,” said Pessolano, a township native who started working for the district in July 2023.
The BPDG bought the 350-acre property in November 2021 and began an environmental cleanup of the site, which was home for many years to the coal-fired B.L. England Generating Station.
Remediation so far has involved implosion and removal of the cooling tower in September 2022, removal of the boiler units in April 2023 and implosion of the iconic smokestack in October. Environmental cleanup also included the removal of invasive phragmites reeds.
The Beesley’s Point Development Group has yet to make its plan for the property public but its partners have said they envision an extensive public nature aspect.
Kreutz, who is responsible for identifying and negotiating local and state incentives as well as working with government agencies and community leaders to maximize future development potential, also is a naturalist and will be bringing his knowledge of that field to bear on the project, focusing on the return of native species.
The group plans to provide opportunities to Upper Township students to learn about the many varied aspects of the extensive property, both during remediation and long after the development is complete.
Unique site
Kreutz said when the BPDG purchased the property, the partners met with Fred Akers and Brooke Handley of the Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association to talk about the site.
“I knew the site had great educational value if we could maximize the assets,” he said, noting he started volunteering with the pair on school programs at Corsons Inlet.
He said most of the children who take part in the programs were just pleased to be out of school for the day but a small number were “super involved and into it.”
“It was really impactful to me in what we could really do here,” Kreutz said.
He shared a story about a young woman approaching Akers at one of the sessions and telling him she now studies marine biology at Stockton University because of the program.
“That kind of got me going with how we can utilize the assets in the sciences, give the kids from first grade to eighth grade, really get them involved in different stages of learning about the environment, biodiversity, keystone species — all the things that are there on that property,” Kreutz said.
He listed things such as diverse habitats, endangered species, varied plants and trees, adaption of organisms to specific environmental conditions, terrestrial ecosystems.
“All of this is there,” he said.
Kreutz said there are 15 acres of old-growth forest on the property, which can be accessed just across Route 9 from Staples Court in Beesleys Point.
“That is going to be part of the magic of the property,” he said, noting there is a quarter-acre pond that could be stocked with fish, as well as uplands and wetlands.
“Different species of animals, frogs, night walks with headlamps, all of that is totally available,” he said.
Plans call for turning the old railroad tracks into a bike trail so children can access the property safely without traversing Route 9.
The BPDG is planning to build raised walking paths through the wetlands with stations for studying water quality, salinity and other measurable facets.
He mentioned the installation of oyster reefs on the bay side to help protect the area from erosion and provide an opportunity for students to study water filtration, coastal protection, carbon sequestration.
“The kids could help feed the reefs with the spat; there’s a whole lot there that they could do,” Pessolano said, noting she used to work for a research lab in Bivalve where they studied oysters. “There’s a lot we could tap into here.”
Another aspect of the property is the potential for birding. An avid birder, Kreutz said James Audubon painted many of the watercolors in his famous work “Birds of America,” which is considered the finest ornithological work ever completed, on the Great Egg Harbor Watershed.
“In the book, he said except for the Florida Keys, the Great Egg Harbor Watershed affords the naturalist as varied a field as any part of our seaboard,” Kreutz said.
He said by one estimate, more than 470,000 tourists visit Cape May County every year to watch migratory birds. The site could draw people from all over the country and world.
“The opportunities for our kids are almost infinite with the things that we could do and the different content areas we could cover with hands-on, experiential learning. For kids and most people, it’s so much more impactful learning through experiences instead of reading about it in a classroom,” Pessolano said.
The superintendent said field trips often are to far-away places but there is so much for students to learn right here at the shore.
“I feel like within our community, our kids are not exposed enough to what’s right in their backyard,” Pessolano said. “To think kids could go there for a school thing and then on the weekend take their family there and explain what they did, I think there’s just a ton of potential there for building interest in our own community.”
She said the site is convenient, just a short trip from two of the three schools and not much farther from the third.
“I like that it’s so close and it can just be a quick trip, doesn’t have to be an all-day thing. We can go for an hour and it doesn’t have to be super-disruptive and we could go more frequently,” Pessolano said.
She asked Kreutz about the timeline for getting started.
He said the woods are available now and could be explored immediately. They discussed organizing a trip for interested teachers to help generate ideas for curriculum content.
Timeline
Kreutz said plans for the redevelopment project should be “pretty laid out” by the end of the year.
“Things will be agreed upon and partners will be picked and we should be starting to get things done,” he said.
One of the things he hopes to start soon is rehabilitation of the pond.
Pessalono asked about students being part of that process.
“As things start to come into shape, all of these area that we are going to rehabilitate, all have education value,” Kreutz said, noting he will get a list together.
“I know it’s going to take time to build this and figure out what it’s going to look like,” Pessolano said.
“I’m excited about it; we just have to figure out how it’ going to work.”
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff