A North Shore Co-op’s Capital Projects: Two If By Sea

A deadline can be a beautiful thing. Just ask the board at 1 Toms Point Lane, a 121-unit co-op on the North Shore of Long Island in Port Washington, which spent the winter and spring working feverishly on major overhauls of the property’s bulkhead and outdoor swimming pool, jobs that absolutely had to be finished in time for summer’s traditional kickoff on the Memorial Day weekend.

“People take that pool very seriously, and if it didn’t open on time, I would have had to go into the Witness Protection program,” quips Barbara Healy, a board member for about 25 years, now in her third year as president. Under sunny skies, the pool opened on Sunday, May 28, the day before Memorial Day – to the great relief of Healy and her fellow board members.

Toms Point’s eight two-story buildings and its swimming pool are protected from the waters of Manhasset Bay by an 850-foot-long bulkhead. “Those are two major components of Toms Point’s infrastructure,” says Don Einsidler, president of Einsidler Management, who has managed the co-op for 31 years. “One protects the property from coastal tides and the other one, the pool, is very much enjoyed by the residents during the summer.”

“Every 20 years or so the bulkhead has to be repainted,” says Healy. “The paint reseals the structure and has to be done by specialists for marine construction. During my time on the board we had to repair and replace parts of the bulkhead twice. This was the first time that we had to reseal it.”

It was not a simple job. After an engineer conducted a survey, permits had to be obtained from the Department of Environmental Conservation. Work could be done only when the tide was low and the temperature was above freezing. “The workmen had some challenges there,” Healy remembers. “In addition, we had to remove the fences surrounding the property and some brickwork and grass. It isn’t easy putting it all back together.”

First the workers removed the bulkhead’s steel cap. Then the bulkhead was water-blasted to remove existing paint and examined for any structural problems before it was resealed with new paint. Luckily there was little damage. A treated timber cap replaced the bulkhead’s original steel cap.

While the bulkhead was resealed – the total cost of the job came to approximately $500,000 – renovation began on the 30-year-old swimming pool, which had never been completely refurbished. Over the years the pool had been coated and then re-coated with a substance called “marble dust,” which had to be jackhammered and removed, then replaced with a coating of “Pool Bright.”

“We needed to do some major work on the pool, so we decided to just redo the whole thing,” says Healy, including new PVC pipes and new LED lights. “This was a huge project.” The total cost was $100,000.

Thanks to careful planning, the board was able to pay for both projects without levying an assessment or increasing maintenance. “In 2012 we refinanced our mortgage at a lower interest rate,” says Healy. “We saved $12,000 a month in mortgage payments, and we put that money into our reserve fund. We knew those capital projects were coming and we wanted to have the money to pay for them.”

The co-op also got a $500,000 line of credit and used $200,000 of it toward the two capital projects. The co-op’s treasurer is convinced they can pay back the $200,000 within a year with the income from flip taxes and the monthly $12,000 savings.

“We do not foresee any more capital projects in our near future,” says property manager Einsidler. Healy adds: “If there’s a surprise, we still have $300,000 of unused credit.”

According to Einsidler the co-op has always been financially healthy. “Fiscally, they have a kind of conservative approach,” he says “They’re always planning for the future without keeping unnecessarily high amounts in the reserve fund. I don’t want to jinx it, but we never had an assessment in 31 years. We had operational maintenance increases, but thanks to good planning we never had to do an assessment.”

PRINCIPAL PLAYERS: MANAGER – Einsidler Management. BULKHEAD PROJECT ENGINEER – Vachris Engineering. BULKHEAD CONTRACTOR – Chesterfield Associates. POOL RENOVATION – Twin County Pools.