By JOHN T. WARD

Can a Jersey Girl whose work as a 22-year-old prostitute helped derail a political career in spectacular fashion return home and remake herself as a small-town retailer?

Four years after her high-priced hotel romps with Eliot Spitzer dynamited his tenure as governor of New York and made her infamous, Ashley Dupré says she turned a page Monday with the opening of Femme by Ashley, a lingerie and swimwear boutique on the choicest block in downtown Red Bank.

The shop, Dupré told redbankgreen in an exclusive interview, “is almost like the beginning of the rest of my life.

“I made a bunch of mistakes when I was younger, and I feel like, for the first time in my life, I’m growing into an adult, and I’m really excited about that,” she said.

The Broad Street boutique features lingerie, swimsuits and Victoria  Beckham sunglasses. (Click to enlarge)

Petite and wearing eyeglasses that made her appear somewhat more studious than she did in Girls Gone Wild videos made a decade ago, 27-year-old Dupré said she agreed to redbankgreen‘s request for a sit-down only at the urging of her boyfriend, TJ Earle, who thought it was important in establishing community roots. She said it would likely be her only interview on the topic.

Off-limits were questions about the events that made her a household name. Dupré also refused to allow redbankgreen to videotape the interview or even take her photo, saying she’d been “burned” in the past by the unauthorized release of images. Instead, she supplied a commissioned portrait.

“I’m just done with it,” Dupré said of her scandal-based persona. “I’m very private. People don’t believe that, but I’m a very private person. I don’t want that life. I’m not looking to be in the press. I’m just looking to get on with my life.”

Her focus, she said, is on becoming a business owner and “me doing what I enjoy for the first time, and not caring what anyone else has to say about it.”

Dupré’s image rehab effort might be traced to her hire two years ago as a sex -and-relationship advice columnist for the New York Post, which had previously reveled in labeling her a “ho” and “trollop” at every opportunity. In bringing her on board, the newspaper wrote:

She didn’t ask for fame, but, “Now that I have it, it’s up to me to take advantage,” she said.

Under the tag “Ask Ashley,” Dupré fielded questions that at first overtly traded on her notoriety. “How do I know if my daughter may be getting into trouble?” asked “Meredith, 40, Queens,” in the debut.

But the column later morphed into questions about keeping relationships fresh and exciting, Dupré said. “I think I have moved away from how I’m viewed to ‘how do I save my relationship?’ and ‘how do I make this work?’” she said.

The Broad Street store represents a continuation of that evolution, she said – and the likely end of the column, which she said has “run it’s course.”

Other than a confessional interview with Diane Sawyer on 20/20, a raunchy one with Howard Stern and a nude spread in Playboy, what else has Dupré been up to since the Spitzer scandal broke in March, 2008?

“I’ve been in a relationship,” she said. “I’ve just started my life over.” She and Earle, a paving industry exec, have lived in the Navesink section of Middletown for the past two months. She said she considers him her best friend, and his young daughters her family.

Growing up in Wall Township, Dupré said she was a frequent visitor to Red Bank. Moving back to the Shore after seven years in Manhattan and again visiting the town, “I just fell in love with the community as a whole,” she said. “It is like a little mini SoHo, and the people here are great.”

In creating Femme by Ashley, Dupré hired Amy Manor of West Front Street to design the space. Borough-based Frame to Please supplied oversized mirror frames and Solari Creative, also of Red Bank, did the website.

“We really kept it in the community. It’s like our own little networking circle here,” Dupré said. “It’s very important to me to have that.”

The resulting shop features white walls, ceilings and flooring. Long, silver velvet drapes form a pair of dressing rooms, each equipped with a plush purple chair so shoppers and their significant others can have some intimate time during a bikini or teddy try-on.

Dupré said the boutique’s merchandise, including labels Agua Bandita, Pily Q and Jenna Leigh, reflects her own evolving fashion sense.

“I’m  a girl, and I think every girl likes to shop and explore their tastes,” she said. “Getting into this business, I kind of explored all of these designers and fell in love with them.”

The shop offers swimsuits in the $180 to $200 range as well as some “special” underthings, Dupré said.

“I really wanted this to be a place where anybody could come in and get something and be able to afford it, but also to have the luxurious items, too,” she said.

Dupré said she plans to be in the store daily, and is braced for curiosity seekers.

“Well, I’m sure I’m going to see everybody,” she says with a laugh. “I’m sure a lot of interesting people are going to walk through those doors.”

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna met recently with Dupré and Earle at their request, and said he came away impressed by their vision for the store and their enthusiasm about the town. Only one person, the wife of a retailer, had complained to him about Dupré’s arrival, he said. “I reminded her that none of us are exemplary in every aspect of our lives.” he said.

“We are a very diverse town,” Menna said. “We welcome everyone.”

Dupré, though, doesn’t expect everyone to be welcoming. She says she’s learned to shrug off whispers, which she finds prevalent “whether you’ve been involved in a scandal or not. People always talk about other people. And it’s sad that you don’t have anything more important to talk about in your life, but that’s just the way of life. Not everybody can like you, and it’s OK. I’m OK with that.

“What am I going to do, live in the past, regretting every mistake I’ve ever made?” she said. “That’s the sign of a weak person. You need to get over it and move on.”

By JOHN T. WARD

A prominent space on White Street in Red Bank is available for rent with the planned departure of a furniture and design store.

And stay tuned for some possible changes just down the block at Clearview Cinemas, which is up for sale with the rest of the arthouse chain, according to reports.

Cablevision has put its Clearview chain of arthouse theaters on the block. (Click to enlarge)

Both properties are under the ownership umbrella of Philip J. Bowers & Company, based in Tinton Falls.

At 24 White, Space Interiors is planning to relocate to Deal, having been the sole tenant of the refurbished corner of English Plaza for 14 years, owner Briggi Brandner tells redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.

“We’re not going out of business, we’re just moving,” Brandner said. She’s already shut down a second store at Pier Village in Long Branch for consolidation at the Deal location, which she said is three times as large as the Red Bank one.

Landlord John Bowers said there’s 2,000 square feet of space with display frontage on two sides. He says Space still has a lease and will remain until he finds a new tenant or the lease runs out. Brandner said that could mean Space sticks around for months more.

Bowers wasn’t aware until we told him that the 49-theater Clearview chain was on the block, as reported recently by Variety and other publications. But he’s not worried about losing the theater as a tenant.

“It’s one of the most successful in the chain, and I would imagine whoever bought it would keep the most successful ones,” he said.

The former home of Love Lane Tuxedos is one of downtown Red Bank’s most persistent large vacancies. (Click to enlarge)

By MIKE BARON

Where’s the love for the old Love Lane building?

The prominent storefront on West Front Street, with its distinctive retro signage, has remained stubbornly vacant for eight years, and the exterior is showing its age.

Now, amid  many signs of resurgence on the block, the address is starting to stand out as an eyesore, neighbors say.

Love Lane Tuxedos, which occupied the property for three decades, relocated to 66 Broad Street in 2004. Frank Cannarozzo of Holmdel bought the structure in June, 2007 for $1.75 million, paying nearly a million dollars more than the seller, 17 Broad Street LLC, paid just three years earlier, Monmouth County records indicate. He also took out a $1.435 million mortgage.

Then the financial crisis hit. An art gallery that was said to be planned for the building never materialized.

Public records show that PNC Bank began foreclosure proceedings on the property in July, 2009, but the status of that action is unclear. A call to Dilworth Paxson LLP, a Cherry Hill law firm representing PNC in the foreclosure process, wasn’t returned.

Attempts to reach Cannarozzo were also unsuccessful.

Sitar Company has a listing on the building now, and it’s being offered for sale at a “price reduced” $850,000. There’s also the option to lease all or part of the 6,200-square-foot structure, which Sitar says has “been gutted and is ready for construction.” The first floor features 3,500 SF and 14-foot ceilings.

The property also comes with “approved plans for renovation and expansion (to 7,100 square feet) for retail use,” according to Sitar, which adds that the addition of a third floor is possible.

But people familiar with the building say it is rife with problems, including termite damage, a dirt-floor basement and a need for costly upgrades to meet fire code and other requirements.

Meanwhile, the Love Lane structure appears more unloved than ever, a drag on a strip of West Front Street that has come back strongly in recent months, with new businesses joining mainstays Front Street Trattoria, Wayne’s Market, Fixx and the Downtown nightclub

Newcomers include Jonathan Erdelyi, a 30-year-old national biking champion who recently rolled out Red Bicycle Studio at 27 West Front, and Lucky Break Billiards and Café, at 14 West Front. In the works is Jr’s West End, the Long Branch late-night hamburger and sandwich restaurant that plans to expand into the former home of Zuleyka’s Kitchen at 17 West Front.

Harry Whittom, a manager at Wayne’s, Love Lane’s neighbor at 21 Front Street, said things are mostly quiet next door.

“You see a couple of people going in and out of there from time to time but not a whole lot of activity,” he said. “My feeling is the building probably needs a lot of work inside.”

Asked what business he’d like to see established in the spot, Whittom was at a loss, noting it was hard to picture any new venture setting up shop given the building’s current state.

“I don’t know what would work there now,” he said. “What we don’t need is another Italian restaurant or jewelry store.”

By JOHN T. WARD

The building appears to sigh and lean, as though aware of its fate. Inside, nooks and corners that once teemed with the cast-offs of the decades have begun to empty out.

It’s a sad time at Monmouth Antique Shoppes, one of the anchors of Red Bank’s vaunted Arts & Antiques District. Eviction notice in hand, owner John Gribbin has informed his 23 remaining dealers that they, like he, must be out by the end of the month, ending a 29-year run.

“It’s not the best time for me to talk,” Gribbin told redbankgreen Tuesday, as he had also last week. “I’m trying to find a home for me and my dealers, and it’s not easy going.”

More than a dozen of the displaced shops are finding a new home just a few doors east, at the Gizzi family’s Riverbank Antiques. (Click to enlarge)

The wood-frame building, at the southeast corner of West Front Street and Bridge Avenue, was once part of the Eisner uniform factory complex – “a sweatshop,” said Gribbin. Now, it is slated to be razed to make way for the MW West Side Lofts project, a mixed-use assemblage of luxury rental apartments, street-level retail, live-and-work artists’ spaces, a parking garage and a Triumph Brewing Company restaurant.

No permits for the demolition or ensuing construction have yet been issued, according to a borough official. But Monmouth Antique Shoppes and Ambiance antiques, which occupies a neighboring building owned by the lofts developer, have been told to clear out. They were recently given 60 days notice, almost six years after the lofts plan won approval.

Unaffected by the action is Guy Johnson’s Antique Center of Red Bank, which occupies two sprawling buildings, including the giant barn-red structure at the intersection’s northeast corner and a second warehouse opposite Brothers Pizza.

The diaspora has proven to be an awkwardly welcome boon for Carla Gizzi, who runs her family’s Riverbank Antiques business just a block east of Gribbin’s. She’s busily making arrangements to accommodate more than a dozen displaced dealers.

“I feel horrible for John, but it actually enables us to stay in business, and we’re keeping these dealers in Red Bank,” Gizzi said. “We’re consolidating and enabling them to stay.”

Among those making the move are Reggie Hawn and Cheryl Figliola. Hawn, who’s been at the shoppes for less than two years, said she’s “looking forward to the day when we can all reunite under one tent,” reforming a group of dealers with complementary specialties.

“What made us successful here was that we’re all collectors first,” said Figliola, a 17-year tenant of the shoppes. “Everyone found their own niche.”

Gribbin said he doesn’t know where he and other dealers, who together operate as a sort of cooperative, selling each other’s goods when dealers are absent, will wind up. But he sees his business’s departure as part of an inexorable slide toward oblivion for the antiques district.

“As to me, I’m leaving Red Bank,” he said. “This industry has been a major draw for the town, and it’s going away slowly.”

Just across the street, another storefront formerly occupied by an antiques dealer stands empty following the recent departure of Plum Cottage, which relocated to Fair Haven.

By JOHN T. WARD

Downtown Red Bank’s comeback is about to get a jolt of extra energy.

Alex and Ani, a designer and retailer of wrist bangles and necklaces infused “with the positive energy that ancients refer to as vital force,” has signed to take over retail space at 12 Broad Street, next door to the newly relocated coffeehouse Zebu Forno.

Even the walls are expected to hum with good vibes.

On her store’s website, owner and designer Carolyn Rafaelian says her mission is “to design products that adorn the body, enlighten the mind, and empower the spirit.”

On a page labeled “philosophy,” the site says Alex and Ani

is a company dedicated to creating products of unparalleled quality and beauty that promote consciousness and unity. Manufacturing in the United States and re-using and recycling materials is an integral part of Alex and Ani’s mission as a conscious and eco-friendly company. Alex and Ani’s collections are not only Eco-friendly, they are made up of powerful, meaningful, and spiritual pieces, which uplift and inspire all who wear them.

The website says Alex and Ani has 10 stores, seven of them in New England. The Red Bank shop would be the first in New Jersey, according to the list.

The shop may need some supplemental positive energy to attract walk-in traffic. The space the company is leasing has no storefront: the tall glass windows outside the shop frame an elevator foyer.

But the retailer seems to have that covered. Contractors will be installing  vital force crystals between studs before closing up walls with Sheetrock, redbankgreen has learned from reliable sources.

Rafaelian did not respond to a request for comment left at the company’s store in SoHo.

Red Bank’s most prominent downtown clock may be stuck in winter, but a spring season less than a month old is already aching to turn into summer, it seems.

After a couple of (more) warmish days Friday and Saturday, temperatures are expected to hit the mid-70s Sunday, and climb past 80 on Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

Here’s the forecast:

Today: Sunny, with a high near 62. Northwest wind between 8 and 10 mph.

Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 43. West wind between 7 and 9 mph.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. West wind between 7 and 11 mph.

Saturday Night: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 52. Southwest wind around 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.

Sunday: Partly sunny, with a high near 75. West wind between 11 and 16 mph.

Sunday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 59.

Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 81.

Monday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 62.

Tuesday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Tuesday Night: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 54. Chance of precipitation is 40%.

Wednesday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 64. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Wednesday Night: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 48. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Thursday: Partly sunny, with a high near 62.

The recent opening of Lucki Clover, above, in a Broad Street space vacated last September, is seen as one of many indicators of a strengthening comeback.  (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Without question, the losses have been significant.

Over the past six months, as the global, national and regional economies have struggled to emerge from the wreckage of the 2008 credit meltdown, Red Bank’s retail market has continued to absorb hard-to-shake-off business departures.

Primas Home Cafe. Willy’s Cheesesteaks. Soapmarket. Later this month, Surray Luggage, a Broad Street fixture, will hold a liquidation sale.

But more so than in the recent past, the downtown real estate market has been marked by two noteworthy trends: faster refilling of storefronts, and the end of several key, longtime vacancies.

What’s it all add up to? In a word, recovery, says at least one downtown Churn watcher.

Among new stores yet to open is Femme By Ashley, a lingerie and swimwear shop owned by Ashley Dupré. (Click to enlarge)

Jay Herman, a principal in Downtown Investors, which owns a dozen properties in the district, tells redbankgreen that demand is “absolutely” on the upswing. He attributes that to the end of a national bottoming-out, and to the interplay of five local elements: retail, restaurant, residential, office an entertainment.

“The downtown is leading the way,” said Herman, who recently broke ground on an expansion for tenant Morgan Stanley on Linden Place, just steps from Broad Street. “We are finding more success than is true nationally.”

Or regionally, for that matter. Herman says anyone driving Route 35 from Hazlet to Brielle and looking at the shopping centers “will find that the success in filling vacancies is not what is in downtown Red Bank.”

Here’s a lookback at some of the key activity in Red Bank’s main business district over the past six months.

• Print shop AlphaGraphics moved to 68 White Street, former home of Cigars Plus, and quickly saw the space it vacated in the City Centre Plaza, at Maple Avenue and West Front Street, leased to Yo Mon Yogurt, a self-serve frozen yogurt business owned by Michael and Jennifer Mann of Little Silver. AlphaGraphics is open for business and Yo Mon is under construction.

• David Banegas, an action painter who already had a gallery in Delray Beach, Florida, opened a new gallery/live-painting studio into the space vacated five months earlier by clothing store Bella Mystique, at 43 Broad Street.

• Nina’s Waffles & Sweets opened at 15 White Street, in a space recently vacated by Filakia Children’s Boutique.

Yestercades, a retro electronic gaming parlor, opened at 80 Broad Street, filling a giant, gaping hole that had defied filling since the failure, in 2007, of f LJ’s Total Man/Today’s Woman clothing store.

• Barefoot Bride, a gown shop that had called Fair Haven home for more than 45 years, moved to the 2,000-square-foot storefront at 65 Monmouth Street, former home Rob Amend and Michael Yavorsky’s of Red Ginger Home furnishings, which relocated to Broad Street more than a year ago.

• LoBoudoir Photography, which offers the latest in must-have hubba-hubba personal imagery, joined its sibling CLB Photography and Mike Hernandez Jr.’s Sounds to Go DJ service to take over the storefront at 21 East Front Street, a glass-fronted space last tenanted by the chic furniture seller Design Front, which left in 2009.

• Two dress shops moved in days apart, and one storefront apart, on Monmouth Street in November.

Jessy Krol’s Emilia took over 28 Monmouth, vacated in early August by Cocoon, an accessories retailer. Then,  Rue Royale Couture, specializing in prom and pageantwear, took over at 24 Monmouth, formerly held by Polish tableware dealer Adams Imports.

In between those two was David Levine Salon, which relocated to 69 Monmouth, former home of Cheveux Salon, leaving a yet-to-be filled vacancy at 26 Monmouth.

• Also on Monmouth, in the shop that formerly housed Miss Sherri’s Honey Child Music, Josephine More opened Innovative Nails.

• Kravings Frozen Yogurt opened at 90 Broad, filling another of the downtown’s most persistent vacancies.

Remember Altamonte Imports? Yeah, neither does Google. That was the last tenant in the space. Kravings owner Jill Pecoraro, bouncing back from the failure of another fro-yo franchisor with which she had contracted, shifted gears to create the new brand and outfit the gleaming, green-tiled space, which debuted in February.

• Kramer Portraits, which for the past 10 years had occupied a narrow storefront next door to the Jade Garden take-out Chinese place on Broad Street, took one of the two storefronts at 8 East Front last month. That’s the former Kislin’s Sporting Goods building, which vacated in 2005 and had no successor tenants.

As reported by Retail Churn last week, Vizzini & Company, a furniture dealer, plans to leave its anchor space in the Galleria at Red Bank on the West Side to take the second of the two storefronts, ending the building’s seven-year drought.

• Hair stylist Salon Concrete has signed to take over half the space at the 5,600-square foot 123-127 Broad Street, said salon owner Christine Zilinski. For years, the building was home to Surray Luggage, which moved to the opposite side of Broad several years ago.

• In news that broke on redbankgreen and gained national coverage, Ashley Dupré, whose infamous romps with Eliot Spitzer torpedoed his career as New York’s governor, plans to open a lingerie and swimwear store called Femme by Ashley at 15 Broad Street, a stylish storefront recently vacated by children’s boutique Lavish Kids. Outfitting of the store is underway, with an eye toward a May opening, we’re told.

• Jr’s West End, the Long Branch late-night hamburger and sandwich restaurant launched five years ago, plans to expand into the former home of Zuleyka’s Kitchen at 17 West Front Street.

• After five months of downtime, popular Red Bank coffee mainstay Zebu Forno reopened at a new address on March 1: 12 Broad Street  just a few doors down from the storefront it occupied for a decade at 20 Broad.

• Jonathan Erdelyi, a 30-year-old national racing champion, rolled out Red Bicycle Studio at 27 West Front Street. The 975-square-foot storefront was last occupied by Down to the Felt, a retailer of parlor games now operating out of 182 West Front, according to its website.

• Sunkissed Airbrush Tanning opened in a tiny second-floor space upstairs from That Hot Dog Place, in the alleyway beside the Dublin House on Monmouth Street in Red Bank.

• Lucki Clover, a women’s clothing and accessories store, opened in half the space formerly taken by Zebu Forno, at 20 Broad. The other half is set to be the home of a Boardwalk Fresh Burgers & Fries, setting up an interesting potential hamburger war with Jr.’s, not to mention existing restaurants.

• Workers were seen doing early prep work recently in the planned home of Subway Café, a 28-seat “hip” variation on the sandwich shop chain’s usual offerings, at 60 Broad Street, in a long-vacant space between the Red Bank Nail Salon and Hip & Humble Home furnishings.

• 12 Monmouth is being outfitted for Ice Costume Jewelry, which hopes to open in just a couple of weeks, store manager Ashely Goral tells Churn. The space was most recently home to Soapmarket, which vacated in January to become an online-only retailer.

• Elio Ventrella’s The Glam Bar hair styling salon – blowouts, no cuts – opened for business, after a glammy red-carpet style opening party. (That’s the salon’s designer lounge at right.) The salon replaces Butterfly Fine Arts at 116 Broad.

• Lucky Break Billiards and Café, opened at 14 West Front Street.  The gaming parlor, with five pool tables and a shuffleboard table, is situated within steps of five bars.

Furniture retailer Vizzini & Company plans to relocate from the Galleria to 8 East Front. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

A longtime major vacancy on East Front Street in Red Bank is about to end, adding momentum to an economic resurgence on and near Broad Street.

Vizzini & Company, a furniture dealer, will leave its anchor space in the Galleria at Red Bank on the West Side to take the second of two storefronts at 8 East Front, the former home of Kislin’s Sporting Goods, Retail Churn has learned.

The move was confirmed by Jeannie Maloy, manager of Root, on Maple Avenue, an affiliate of Vizzini. She said the move is expected to occur within a month.

Joe Mazzarino, who owns both Vizzini and Root, could not be reached for comment.

Brown paper already covers the windows at the former Vizzini store at the southern end of the sprawling Galleria shopping, dining and office complex. No word was immediately available on whether the Sourlis family, which owns the complex, had lined up a new tenant for the space.

The Kislin’s building got an extensive overhaul after the sporting goods store closed in 2005, ending a century of continuous operation. Luxury apartments were created on the upper two floors of the red brick structure. But the two storefronts on either side of the main entry at street level went begging.

The drought ended last month, when Kramer Portraits, which for 10 years occupied a narrow storefront next door to the Jade Garden take-out Chinese place on Broad Street, relocated to the storefront on the east, taking 2,500 square feet.

In recent months, East Front has seen CLB Photography and Sounds to Go DJ service fill a gaping hole at 21 East Front. On the west side of Broad, Jonathan Erdelyi has opened Red Bicycle Studio, and Lucky Break Billiards started racking ‘em up last week. On the drawing board is Jr’s.

The additions come as the northern end of Broad Street has seen vigorous renewal. Zebu Forno reopened after a relocation to 12 Broad, and the space it vacated, at 20, has already seen the opening of Lucki Clover women’s clothing, with Boardwalk Fresh Burgers & Fries planning to open in coming weeks.

In other Churnings:

Char Steakhouse has begun gutting the former Ashes Cigar Bar for a major makeover inside and out. A late summer opening is expected.

Work is also underway at the former home of Lavish Kids, at 15 Broad, where Ashley Dupre is planning to open Femme by Ashley lingerie and swimwear.

Listings on Craigslist and the Restaurant Brokers website the Muscle Maker Grille on West Front Street is for sale. Asking price: $129,000.

Surray Luggage has been dark this week, with signs touting an inventory closeout. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Has Surray Luggage gone on a trip?

The Red Bank luggage retailer’s Broad Street store has been dark for a week, with signs hinting vaguely of change.

Window signs posted a week ago tout an inventory liquidation sale, but the store has remained closed without explanation.

Repeated efforts to contact business owner John Smigler or anyone at the store have gone undesponded to.

Surray, long entrenched at 123-127 Broad, relocated to its present address across the street five years ago. As previously reported by Churn, the space it vacated is slated to become home to Salon Concrete hair styling.