Andover Twp. finances ‘rescued’

A limited liability company recently purchased the tax certificate for the site of the shuttered Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center, 99 Mulford Road, Andover, after its owner failed to pay real estate taxes for a year on the property.

Local officials said the transaction allows Andover Township to fulfill an outstanding obligation that had threatened to derail its finances.

“That property is key to our tax base, and this transaction restores our strong financial situation,” said Mayor Thomas Walsh. “Woodland also has a nursing home on O’Brien Place that is six months behind in taxes. To give us more control over the Mulford Road property’s future, which is undetermined, it has been zoned as a redevelopment zone.”

The legal transfer of the tax sale certificate to Andover 1225 LLC in exchange for payment of nearly $1.2 million in taxes was authorized July 25 at a special meeting of the Township Committee. This included interest at a rate of 18 percent on the outstanding taxes.

Walsh said the tax certificate allows Andover 1225 LLC to charge the property owner interest.

The registered agent of Andover 1225 LLC is John Ursin, a lawyer with Schenck, Price, Smith & King in Florham Park.

The Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center, formerly known as Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, closed about a year ago after all of its residents were moved.

At least 83 residents reportedly died of COVID-19 at the facility, which had a long-term-care bed capacity of 543.

At the beginning of the pandemic, in April 2020, a police inspection of the facility found 17 bodies piled in a morgue that had space for four, prompting further investigation and a civil penalty of $220,235 among other actions.