County Plans New Garage In Paramus

At first glance, Jerome Avenue is another quiet street in Paramus. But at its end, past a tree-covered bend in the road, is the Mosquito Control Commission, the county's base in an endless, but quiet war against mosquitos.

Starting in the summer though, the county hopes to start work on another facility there, a 50,000 square-foot garage to replace the Department of Public Works facility in Hackensack.

Currently, a handful of buses from the Bergen County Special Services School district, along some county vehicles, sit on the parking lot in front of the Mosquito Control Facilities. It's there that the new garage will go.

In time, county Public Works Superintendent Joe Crifasi said the garage facilities for the department's operations and mosquito control divisions would be housed in the new building. They'll share space with the Special Services School district, which will continue to use the site as a repair facility for its buses.

Crifasi said the department's current garage on Zabriskie Street in Hackensack was "oversized, overutilized and outdated."

Mosquito control and operations are the two busiest divisions in the Department of Public Works, Crifasi said. As the county performed a months-long search for a new facility, officials sought a central location that could serve the county's towns from Mahwah to North Arlington.

Paramus, located in the heart of the county, and home to several county facilities already, fit that description.

Crifasi didn't give a cost estimate on the facility, since it is still in the planning stages.

"It's going to be a low-cost design," he said.

Mayor Richard LaBarbiera said his biggest concern about the project was the prospect of increased truck traffic in the area.

Crifasi said the county might create an access road through the Bergen Regional Medical Center campus to the planned garage.

"That access road will be the known entrance way to our facility and then Jerome Ave. can resume back to its residential access," he said.

LaBarbiera also complained that borough officials hadn't heard about these plans from the county.

"The door's always open for the county and it's disappointing that they don't take advantage of those open lines of communication," LaBarbiera said.

Crifiasi said he planned to get in touch with Paramus officials as soon as the county signed a contract with an architect.

"Once the contracts are signed with the Architect, we will reach out for the Borough of Paramus and sit with their representatives to advise on our plans for work on existing property and the improvements to local roads that benefit Paramus," he said.