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After the Allenhurst Beach Club sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Sandy, borough officials are looking not only to repair the club’s facilities, but also make improvements.

The town hopes to offset costs with help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], officials said at last night’s commissioners’ meeting.

FEMA has three different categories for repairs that could be reimbursed: restoring the structure to how it was, repairing with mitigations to lessen the effect of future storms, and repairing with improvements, according to borough administrator Lori Osborn.

MR. C’S

The borough is still grappling with whether Mr. C’s beach club restaurant should be repaired or torn down and rebuilt. They will hear reports from structural and mechanical engineers before making a decision.

“It’s reaching the point where you look at it, and what’s more cost effective? To take it down and start over? And to me it’s looking that way,” Mayor David McLaughlin said.

In case of the former, repairs could go on throughout the summer so that the building can be not just fixed, but improved, Mayor McLaughlin said.

“We can keep the nautical theme,” Mayor McLaughlin said, “but when you look at the building now, you see a building that looked real good in the 1930’s, but things have been changed, the look of it has been changed. Maybe now’s the time to make the building even better.”

Local architect and chairman of the planning board Joe Tomaino has been consulted on the repair process, Mayor McLaughlin said. Repairing the outside structures, snack bar and restaurant will take at least two months, Tomaino told officials, so renovation would start by March.

Since FEMA will pay for some of the repairs, Mayor McLaughlin mentioned plans to add on to Mr. C’s restaurant, possibly making the restaurant two floors instead of one, with the top floor for the use of beach club members only.

The borough would have to pay for the addition, Mayor McLaughlin said, but with insurance and FEMA offsetting some costs, this could cost the town $500,000.

“We’d get a nice, fully functional building for a good cost,” Osborn said.

For now, salvaging the light fixtures and useable kitchen equipment is the top priority.

SNACK BAR

The snack bar will be repaired as part of the restaurant repair project, as a packaged deal would be more cost effective, Mayor McLaughlin said.

That project might continue through the summer as well, so the commissioners discussed plans for a temporary snack bar this summer.

Snack bar manager Gavin DeCapua said working out of a truck on the beach would cut down on his sales dramatically.

“It is what it is, and if you can’t get the building done we’ll make it work,” DeCapua said. “But we’ve got a lot of people in that club and they depend on variety.”

The biggest expense for rebuilding the snack bar will be a hooded suppression system for the grill and fryers, DeCapua said. The suppression system is designed to come down and smother any fires that might break out in the kitchen.

The previous suppression system was 10 feet long, but that wasn’t large enough for safety, DeCapua said.

Somewhere between 12 and 15 feet would be the best size for the new hooded suppression system, DeCapua said. That would cost about $1,000 a foot.

POOL

The pool was largely undamaged by Sandy, but the pool liner in the deep end was damaged by debris, Osborn said. She and beach club co-manager Doug Caron recommended that the whole deep end be redone.

“Cement blocks, equipment, a flag pole, all went in there and punctured the pool liner. Small punctures, but the water can get under it,” said Caron.

He also said some of the caulking and lining around the edge of the pool should be redone.

BANDSTAND AREA, DECK LAYOUT AND SEAWALL

The bandstand area by the snack area will be redesigned to make more use of the space, which was usually empty, Mayor McLaughlin said. The steps between the old and new cabanas will also be removed, putting the two closer together.

Permanent bathrooms might also be added to the cabana area, the mayor said.

The seawall needs to be replaced in three areas: a 100-foot area where the boardwalk came up, at the end of Allen Avenue, and in front of the restaurant, Osborn said.

The seawall doesn’t have to be built before the boardwalk, but it constructing the seawall first may be easier, Caron said.

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