http://www.northjersey.com/news/126349348_124-year-old_Oritani_Field_Club_sold.htmlHACKENSACK SITE MAY BE PART OF REDEVELOPMENT PLANBY KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
The 124-year-old Oritani Field Club in Hackensack, one of Bergen County's oldest sports clubs, has been sold and will shut its doors at the end of 2015, the club's president said Thursday.
The East Camden Street tennis club has signed a contract for the sale, but the deal will not actually close until 2015, said Theodore Agen of Fort Lee, president of the club's board. It is to continue operating until then, he said.
Agen declined to disclose the sale price or the buyer's name. He said he believes the buyer plans to redevelop the 2.3-acre site, possibly as part of a larger redevelopment plan. The City Council just last month designated the Main Street neighborhood as an area in need of rehabilitation, opening the way for infrastructure repairs and mixed residential/office/retail development.
Agen said the club's members decided to sell because the |club has been running at an annual deficit of about $30,000 on a budget of about $250,000 for several years. He said the purchaser made a down payment on the property that will help the club operate through 2015.
The average age of the club's 140 members is over 65, he said. Ideally, the club should have about 200 members to support the number of tennis courts it has, he said.
"Membership has been dwindling," said Agen, a retired software entrepreneur. "In five years, we'd probably be in an untenable position in terms of having enough people to play."
The club, which also has a pool, is assessed at $1.6 million, down from $2.3 million last year.
The Oritani club was founded in 1887 by two local groups, the Pastime Lawn Tennis Club and the Hackensack Lawn Tennis Club. It was named for Oratam, the local Indian chief of the 17th century, and was originally located where the Hackensack YMCA now stands, on 10 acres that stretched from Main Street to the Hackensack River.
The club included a baseball field, boathouse and the first bowling lanes installed in Bergen County, though it now is primarily a tennis club.
The club moved a few blocks south to its current site, on East Camden Street, in 1925, constructing a red-brick Colonial Revival building for its members.
Agen, 68, who has been a member for two decades, said he has mixed emotions about the sale.
"It was inevitable," he said. "It was going to happen sooner or later. We were able to do it on our timetable."
Hackensack City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono said he did not know who the buyer is. He said he hoped any redevelopment would "be complementary to what we're trying to do on Main Street, and our efforts to make Main Street a vibrant downtown area."
Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado contributed to this article. E-mail: lynn@northjersey.com
READER COMMENT:pjmccabe says:
The Oritani was a big part of my young days in the 50s and 60s. My parents were members and some of us kids (6) would take the 165 bus (twenty-five cents) down to Hackensack and swim and play tennis for the day. Weekends were a family affair and we all went there until we were old enough for summer jobs. LITTLE KNOW FACT: Some of the great jazz musicians would play at the Oritani at Sunday afternoon "tea dances", not much tea, but incredible music from guys that were fixtures in the City. I have all the recordings from those events and they are musical history. #2 - Oritani was the first private club to invite Arthur Ashe to play in a tournament. The Easter Clay Court Championships were played there every year. Arthur first came as a 17 year from Richmond. Then a few years later won the whole thing. They should hold a reunion of past members before shutting the doors.