From ManvilleToday's Rustic Mall coverage in 2024, we reported that Manville was awarded 5 million dollars from the "Resilient Communities Program" grant.

Permitted in the RCP grant is funding for property acquisition, specifically $2,750,000 of the $5,000,000 would be used for property acquisition, per the documentation reviewed.

It is of interest that the property appraisal report appraises Rustic Mall at $2,760,000, which is only $10,000 more than the amount of funds allocated for property acquisition from the RCP Grant.

During 2024's reporting, the documents for the RCP Grant were obtained via OPRA. In these documents, it stated that $4 million would be needed to acquire the Rustic Mall property.

The additional $1.25 million would come from a second grant, called "Smart Move". ManvilleToday learned, via a Council Meeting, that the Smart Move grant application in 2024 was denied.

However, it was noted during the council meeting that the State of New Jersey's Department of Community Affairs was still willing to work with Manville on this project, and they would have a new application opening later in 2024.

The application from 2024 proposed housing on the land, in addition to various municipal buildings. This year's application was vastly different.

ManvilleToday submitted an OPRA request in June 2025 to the State of NJ requesting a status update on the Borough of Manville submitting a new Smart Move grant application. ManvilleToday was instructed to wait until early July to receive a response to our request.

ManvilleToday received a redacted copy of the 2025 Smart Move grant application, however, it was submitted by a developer, not the Borough of Manville.

There were "revised" requirements for the 2025 Smart Move application, one of which is that a developer would submit it. There was no public meeting or notice required. A developer would prepare and submit the grant application. All that the Borough of Manville had to do was provide a "letter of support".

ManvilleToday attempted to find out how the developer was chosen. After several delays while Manville worked to find an answer to our question, ManvilleToday received this response:

"According to the Borough Engineer, the Borough did not take any action on the second Smart Moves Grant because it was a developer led project. Developers apply for the project through the DCA's NOFA page which details the grant."

However, if a letter of support was required, wouldn't there need to be minimal involvement from the Borough of Manville? Further, it is curious that the grant application stated the developer spent time with the Borough and its engineer discussing the project.

The Borough would need to provide a letter demonstrating that they were in favor of this developer's proposal. The only "support letter" was a copy of meeting minutes, that Mayor Richard Onderko wrote, which will be discussed in our final part of the story.

In our final part of our 2025 Rustic Mall property update, we will detail what was proposed for the site. The "Municipal Campus" idea has been scrapped for the Smart Move 2025 application.