ManvilleToday has covered the topic of Rustic Mall extensively since 2024. If you are new to Manville, the Rustic Mall is the large vacant and fenced lot behind Main Street. This lot is over 10 acres which once hosted a large strip mall. However, it was determined to be an EPA superfund site that contained creosote requiring remediation. It has since been remediated and removed from the superfund list, but the site continues to sit vacant.

A little history of this site is important for the context of this story. The owners of the Rustic Mall sued the Borough of Manville because Manville revised their "Master Plan" to change the zoning of the Rustic Mall site to Municipal. The owners believed this zoning change devalued the land. (We covered this here)

In late 2025, the Rustic Mall wanted to enter mediation with the Borough of Manville regarding this lawsuit. A letter the Borough's attorney summitted to the court cited unnamed "Senior Borough Officials" had declined mediation per publicly available court records. You can read that story here.

In reviewing public court documents, a letter dated February 26th, 2026 was placed in the docket from Rustic Mall LLC. The letter was requesting the motion on the case be moved to another day, or later in the day, on March 5th because "The parties are currently scheduled to begin mediation with Judge Epstein (Ret.) at that exact time." It would appear that the Borough was entering mediation with Rustic Mall on March 5th.

It is safe to assume the Rustic Mall has been a topic of discussion for Council as a review of their meeting agendas show there were at least 3 times where the resolution to go into closed session clearly showed "pending or anticipated litigation, Rustic Mall". These were for the meetings held on March 9 (Resolution #2026-099), February 23 (Resolution #2026-093) and February 9 (Resolution had no listed number). Agendas can be located on the Borough website here.

At Monday's Council meeting there was another closed session in which the resolution did not indicate the topic to be covered. The session lasted approximately 20 minutes, and when the Mayor and Council exited the closed session, Resolution 2026-142 was read into the record. ManvilleToday contacted the Borough to request a copy of the Resolution after the meeting.

The Resolution was titled "Resolution Authorizing The Execution Of A Non-Fair And Open Contract For Condemnation" and stated that the Borough desires to appoint Condemnation Counsel Services, and therefore has a need to retain the services of a firm to provide those services as a non-fair and open contract pursuant to the provisions of N.J.S.A. 19:44A-20.5. The Resolution further included that the anticipated value of the contract for the contracted services may exceed $17,500.

After the Resolution was read into the record, Business Administrator Siboni called the roll. Only Councilman Basista voted to abstain. The Resolution passed on a 5-1 vote.

The property in question was not named when the Resolution was read into the record. There was another public portion opened for anyone having questions on the new Resolution. A resident asked what property this Resolution was referring to.

"Is this regarding any particular property that you’re looking to get condemnation counsel regarding?"

The Mayor deferred to Borough Attorney Scott Salmon who responded: "This is regarding the Rustic Mall property."

It is unknown what led to the Borough taking this step to hire condemnation attorneys and whether mediation continues or if it failed. As these are discussions happening in closed sessions, we may not know.

The last item available on the public court records shows that Rustic Mall submitted a notice of appeal to the Court to appeal the dismissal of their lawsuit against the Borough of Manville regarding the property zoning changes. This means the case will be appealed to the Appellate Court.

ManvilleToday will continue to monitor developments regarding this important topic.