Long-overdue repairs to the Red Bank are now “hitting the express track” with the installation of a slate roof, the Asbury Park Press reports Tuesday.
From the Press:

NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said the new roof is the first of several improvements to come this year at the old station.

In the first phase, budgeted at $800,000, the entire roof will be replaced – work expected to be complete by mid-May, Snyder said. The existing “gingerbread” trim will also be replaced during this phase, she said.

NJ Transit officials are putting out a request for proposals this summer for the second phase, expected to start in mid- to late fall, Snyder said. That work will consist of restoring the remainder of the station, including stripping old paint, painting the building and improving the waiting room.

The circa-1876 station, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was renamed in honor of the late Red Bank mayor and state Supreme Court Justice Daniel O’Hern last August.

By JOHN T. WARD

The developers of proposed 72-room Hampton Inn in Red Bank insist the property on which the hotel would be built is not on Rector Place.

Problem: they previously agreed that it was.

Easily the most multifaceted and complex case to confront  borough land use officials in years, the hotel, which would be built on the site of a closed Exxon station at the foot of the Cooper Bridge, has spawned three lawsuits and long-running, simultaneous sets of hearings at the planning and zoning boards.

At issue at the zoning board is a challenge by borough resident Stephen Mitchell, backed by a competing hotel group, who has asked that the board determine whether the main case was mistakenly sent by officials to the planning board. By his reckoning, the proposed six-story hotel violates the height limits of the waterfront development zone, and thus needs variances from the zoning board.

Mitchell’s challenge has led to three sessions resembling a trial, with lawyers for the opposing sides frequently clashing over rules of evidence and the relevance of questions in cross-examination.

On Thursday night, the thing got even more bizarre, as a witness for the hotel testified its property is not in any way on Rector Place.

Though borough tax records, the post office and a flurry of legislative activity over the property in 2009 all identify the site as 80 Rector Place, an engineer for developer Rbank Capital LLC insisted Thursday night that not only does the site “front” on Route 35, but that it has no frontage whatsoever on Rector Place.

His proof: agreements between the borough and the state Department of Transportation, as well as a finely detailed roadway jurisdiction map. All, he said, show that a 40-foot stretch of the property long identified as being on Rector actually fronts on Route 35.

Exiting the property from that area would put a pedestrian smack on state property, not Rector Place, which is a Monmouth County road, says hotel lawyer Marty McGann.

The issue is key, McGann said, in  determining how to apply a measurement formula in a zoning ordinance to gauge whether the proposed hotel is too tall.

To prevail, though, McGann will have to overcome a wealth of contradictory evidence, including borough tax and other designations.

He’ll also have to reverse the stance taken by of his own client three years ago.

That’s when Rbank Capital sought, and obtained, a decision from the borough council that, despite its street address, the property had previously been included by mistake on a list of residential properties along Rector Place in an ordinance that aimed to preserve old homes. At no time, however, did Rbank representatives claim that the property had no Rector Street frontage.

McGann said the existence of the documents cited Thursday night was unknown at the time.

But Mitchell’s lawyer, Ron Gasiorowski, made clear he regards the frontage issue as a red herring. The ordinance, he maintains, makes no reference to frontage in its formula for determining where to measure a building’s height. Instead, he said, it requires a line be drawn between the river and “the nearest parallel roadway,” which he says is Rector Place.

And just as McGann maintains that the post office designation “is based on public convenience” and has nothing to do with zoning, Gasiorowski claims the highway jurisdiction agreements have nothing to do with zoning, either.

The hearing was tentatively scheduled to resume May 17.

By JOHN T. WARD

For six months, Salt Creek Grille owner Steve Bidgood has watched with guarded optimism the progress of work to replace the 100-foot-long bascule on the Oceanic Bridge over the Navesink River.

Denied since October the benefit of traffic the 72-year-old bridge was built to carry between Middletown and his side, Rumson, Bidgood’s foremost concern has been that the job wrap up, as advertised, by the start of the busy summer season – Memorial Day weekend.

“I’d love to see them do it,” Bidgood told redbankgreen this week, eyeing the elegant bridge framed by the restaurant’s windows. “If they do, I might even buy them dinner.”

It’s looking as though Bidgood will need to reserve a large table.

Monmouth County Engineer Joe Ettore, whose office is managing the project, tells redbankgreen that the Oceanic’s target reopening date remains Thursday, May 31.

An earlier reopening is possible, he said. But don’t count on it.

“We are doing everything we can, working with the contractor, to come in with the best possible date for reopening,” Ettore said Wednesday. “But there is critical work that remains, and that critical work has to by necessity take place at this late point in the project.”

Eighty-five-to-95 percent of the structural work is done, he said, but critical testing of the electrical and mechanical systems remains.

Ettore said the project “had a very tight window in which to complete a substantial amount of work” on the moving parts of the 2,752-foot-long span – by far the county’s longest. The timetable was designed to minimize the adverse economic impact on businesses that are reliant on bridge traffic, he said.

Aided by a snowless and unseasonably mild winter, it appears not a day of the summer season will be lost, Ettore said.

“The fact that we’re on-schedule is a real good sign, and we’re very happy with the contractor’s performance,” he said. The contractor on the $3.6 million job is Iron Bridge Group of North Brunswick.

Funding for the project came from the state, which prohibits early-completion incentives, Ettore said.

The repaired bascule is expected to have a useful life of 20 years, he said, but the long concrete approaches to the bascule are already overdue for replacement, a project that’s not expected to get into construction for at least three more years.

Local and county officials are hoping to persuade the federal government to fund another low-level drawbridge, rather than a high-arc, fixed span that area residents say would adversely affect property values and the aesthetics of the river.

The opening of a new bridge “is at least six years away, and it’s not inconceivable that it could be 10,” Ettore said.

Documents explaining the repair job can be found at the engineering department website.

“There’s no money for business interruption,” says Red Bank Marina owner Steve Remaley, below, who also stands to lose land on both sides of the bridge. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Steve Remaley is about to get it from all sides.

As Monmouth County nears its long-overdue replacement of Hubbard’s Bridge between Red Bank and Middletown starting early next year, the owner of Red Bank Marina is facing:

• the loss of a large parcel of land, opposite his shop on West Front Street, where many of his customers park their vehicles and boat trailers

• the loss of a strip of land on the marina’s main property for the creation of a new pedestrian and bike path to Shrewsbury Avenue

• up to two years of diminished business, including a stretch of at least three months during which bridge traffic will be shut down entirely.

And that’s the best-case scenario.

“I have no idea what I’m in for,” Remaley tells redbankgreen, leaning on a boat being readied for spring and summer use. “This could be the best thing to ever happen to me, or the worst.”

A 2008 plan showing the new bridge, in red. (Click to enlarge)

The new, permanent bridge is expected to cost $12 million and will replace the “temporary” steel span in place since 2004. But unlike the straight path followed by the existing bridge, the replacement will take an arcing sweep toward the north, anchoring at the same points on either side of the Navesink River where it becomes the Swimming River.

The new alignment improves sightlines and safety for motorists, said county Engineer Joe Ettore. It also, coincidentally, allows for construction of most of the new structure without impacting traffic, except for the anticipated three to four months that will be needed to tie the bridge into the landing points, Ettore has said at two presentations on the project.

But it also means that Remaley will lose some 17,000 square feet of land, 12,000 of it underwater, on the north side of West Front Street. What’s not taken by the bridge will, along with a house acquired by the county at Rector Place and West Front, be deeded over to Red Bank for recreational use.

Remaley, who bought the marina in 2007 after years of running one in Oceanport, uses the parcel for boat storage, but the riparian rights he has there allow for the potential expansion of his operation, including the installation of a dock. In compensation, he’s getting a small amount of land on the south side.

“It’s not a fair exchange,” he said. “Everything I can do on this piece of property I can do over there. I can’t stop them from putting in a bridge, but marina properties are very valuable,” and he’s concerned he won’t get a fair price for the balance.

Remaley is also concerned, he said, about the sidewalk that will be built on the southern edge of the bridge. The county plans to acquire a strip of his property adjoining the New Jersey Transit railroad for the construction of a path to connect the bridge to Shrewsbury Avenue, south of the railroad grade crossing.

The existing bridge has a sidewalk only on the north side, and Remaley questions the logic of building one on the new structure, noting that the western terminus of it, near Chris’ Landing, does not meet a sidewalk, so pedestrians will be forced to cross to the north side anyway.

But Ettore said the new sidewalk, in addition to giving Middletown residents more direct access to the Red Bank train station, enhances safety for the marina’s customers.

Without the sidewalk on the south side of the bridge, “there’s no convenient place for someone to get access to the marina” from the northern side, said Ettore. “This way, there is complete access, safe access.”

Ettore said the southern sidewalk, estimated to cost about $750,000, “absolutely has a major functional purpose, which is to avoid a mid-block crossing, where there’s limited sight distance. And quite frankly, the old bifurcation of the marina property, almost necessitated that marina patrons who chose to park on the north side would have to cross mid-block.”

Remayel is worried, though, that the additional sidewalk there will now be more people crabbing from the bridge, and leaving trash behind. And while the bridge is under construction, he’s hoping that the boating channel to the broader Navesink remains open, or his business will suffer yet more.

“There’s no money for business interruption” in the sums that the county is offering in ongoing negotiations, he said.

Despite his many worries, though, Remayel said he’s not dead-set against the bridge.

“Maybe I won’t be affected that much,” he said, acknowledging the county’s goal of limiting the traffic shutdown to winter months, when his business is slow anyway.

And the new bridge will mean no more of the constant clanking of metal parts on the existing structure, he said.

“I’ll be glad because it won’t be so noisy,” he said.

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank’s long-awaited plan to extend streetscape touches down a neglected stretch of Monmouth Street includes a mid-block crossing at the County Basie Theatre, officials say.

Depending on the cost, the project might also include a reworking of the landscaping across the street from the theater, on borough hall property, into an outdoor seating area for theater patrons and others, they said.

Part of the borough’s annual road program, the Monmouth Street upgrade calls for a repaving of the street from Maple Avenue to the train station and the installation of flourishes that mimic those east of Maple, town Engineer Christine Ballard, of T&M Associates, tells redbankgreen.

They include sidewalks with brick shoulders, decorative LED lamps and trash-and-recycling receptacles, Ballard said, noting that the eastern stretch features only trash, not recycling bins.

The mid-block crossing, a sparingly used feature, will be done in red pavers, creating a kind of red-carpet effect, Ballard said. The aim, she said, is to improve safety for pedestrians, particularly when hundreds of them converge upon or leave the theater in a span of a few minutes before and after a show.

Theater officials said Tuesday they weren’t aware the crossing was in the plans, and were pleased to learn about it from redbankgreen.

“That’s great news,” said theater CEO Numa Saisselin. “It’s something we have talked about and asked for. The customers will love it.”

Town officials had to obtain approval from the state Department of Transportation for the feature because the $1.7 million road program is partially funded by the agency, Ballard said.

The Monmouth Street work, part of an effort to revitalize a business corridor long in decline, is expected to cost about $600,000 Ballard said.

Other elements of the road plan include repaving Peters Place and the installation of a pedestrian-activated, high-visibility beacon at the busy intersection with Maple Avenue.

The cost of an E-shaped seating area on the borough hall side of Monmouth, opposite the theater, would be borne by Red Bank RiverCenter, if it gets built at all. Specs for the proposal were included as an alternate plan in the requests for bids that were made available to contractors, but executive director Nancy Adams tells redbankgreen she’s not sure the money will be there, now that RiverCenter is helping carry the cost of defending a lawsuit brought last week by New Jersey Natural Gas.

Bids for the streetscape project are due Wednesday. A contract could be awarded as soon as the next meeting of the mayor and council, on March 28, Ballard said.

The council approved the road plan with little discussion at its March 14 session, and no mention of the mid-block crossing. A few minutes later, resident and board of education member Marjorie Lowe, who works part-time at the Clearview Cinemas on White Street, asked the council to sacrifice a parking space opposite the movie theater for the creation of a mid-block crosswalk.

Mayor Pasquale Menna told her that mid-block crosswalks were not permitted.

Ballard tells redbankgreen that crossing at that location would require an analysis that might not pass muster with the DOT because of the number of driveways emptying onto White Street in close proximity to it.

By JOHN T. WARD

An opponent of a planned hotel at the foot of the Route 35 Cooper’s Bridge made his fullest case yet Thursday night that the building violates Red Bank’s height limits.

But after two slow-moving, trial-like hearings before the town zoning board, the lawyer for the hotel has barely begun to put on his defense, and no resolution of the dispute is likely for at least another month.

James Freeman, an engineering consultant and witness for objector Stephen Mitchell, identifies the proposed hotel site on an aerial photo. (Click to enlarge)

In one of the more bizarre building requests to confront town officials in recent years, Rbank Capital LLC’s plan for a six-story, 72-room Hampton Inn hotel is the subject of two simultaneous hearings, both involving the same opposing lawyers and battalions of engineers and land-use experts.

The first, underway at the planning board since August, concerns whether the hotel can be built as described.

The other, at the zoning board, is solely about the interpretation of the height restriction in the waterfront development zone in which the hotel property lies, and ultimately, whether the planning board is in fact the proper venue for the plan.

The matter is critical because zoning boards are generally believed by land use experts to present tougher hurdles for applicants.

Stephen Mitchell, of Prospect Avenue, maintains that the hotel violates the zone’s height limit, defined as 50 feet above the nearby Navesink River at a point on a line drawn between the river and the nearest street parallel to the river.

Through his lawyer, Ron Gasiorowski, Mitchell also contends that because of an error by borough Engineer Christine Ballard, of T&M Associates, in applying the ordinance a year ago, the case was improperly sent to the planning board.

With his fees being paid by a previously undisclosed hotel-owning group out of Tinton Falls, Gasiorowski called two witnesses Thursday night – engineer James Freeman and planner Gordon Gemma – who testified that while the ordinance is vague on some of its terms, the Hampton Inn, at 82.25 feet above the nearby Navesink River, exceeds the height limitation by more than 32 feet.

Gemma said he examined the town’s 1995 master plan, as well as a waterfront “vision plan” that preceded it, for guidance on  the intent of the ordinance.

Clearly, he told the board, “the purpose of what you wanted to do was to make sure that there weren’t big buildings that close to the river. The whole point is to have a step-back from the river” to enable passersby to enjoy the sight of the river.

Noting that a corner of the proposed hotel is bisected by a line drawn between Rector Place – one of only four streets named in defining the landward edge of the zone – and the rive, Gemma testified: “That portion of the building that is above 50 feet doesn’t belong there.”

Hampton Inn lawyer Marty McGann, whose verbal clashes with Gasiorowski have previously been a hallmark of the planning board hearings and have continued here, drew a loud objection from his adversary when he suggested that Freeman had “willy-nilly, without any basis or semblance of authority,” chosen where to measure the height of the hotel.

Gemma has already been tripped up on his testimony twice: once, by Ballard, after he said that in the ordinance, “height” and “elevation” are synonymous, and later by McGann, who challenged Gemma’s assertion that he had attended all of the planning board hearings on the matter. Pressed under cross-examination, Gemma acknowledged that his may have missed “one or two” of the hearings.

The zoning board hearing was scheduled to continue April 19.

Wednesday’s Star-Ledger has a quirky story about what happens to all those New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway tollbooths after they’re decommissioned by E-Z Pass technology.

They’re put out to pasture in a yard near the Asbury Toll Plaza in Tinton Falls, the Sledger reports.

From the Sledger article, by Mike Franinelli:

“They call it the Tollbooth Graveyard,” said Bob Quirk, who has spent a career in and around tollbooths, first as a collector who breathed fumes and made change at Exit 14C on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1978, and now as director of tolls for the Turnpike and Parkway.

As they decide whether to hit the cash or E-ZPass express lanes, drivers wouldn’t necessarily notice the resting place for tollbooths in the shadows of the busy plaza.

The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which oversees the Parkway and Turnpike, will one day have to figure out what to do with the highway boxes that became casualties when one-way tolling arrived on certain sections of the Parkway.

For now, similar to a dearly departed organ donor providing body parts for the still-living, tollbooths in the graveyard can be scavenged by Parkway maintenance workers for, among other useful parts, their windows and air conditioning and stainless-steel “Dutch doors” that were at the waist level of toll collectors.

In addition, some of the 32 tollbooths in the graveyard could be resurrected with new paint and parts if other toll booths on the Parkway become severely damaged.

“If, God forbid, something were to happen to the toll plaza and a whole booth went out or something, it would be easy to rig one of these up to put in,” said Tom Feeney, a spokesman for Turnpike Authority.

More here.

By JOHN T. WARD

More and more, Red Bank’s a biking town.

There’s the Safe Routes Red Bank initiative, which aims to make it easier for kids to bike and walk to school, and beyond that, to improve safety for all riders and pedestrians.

There’s a master plan to do the same. There’s a group planning to establish a pilot program for bike-sharing here.

There are scads of bike commuters, local road racing groups and triathloners.

But since the departure of the Peddler from White Street half a decade ago, there hasn’t been a bike shop in town.

Jonathan Erdelyi, a 30-year-old national racing champion, has a fix for that.

Next week, Erdelyi plans to roll out the 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.

While painting the interior of the store with his father, Ken, on Saturday, Erdelyi told redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn that his background and passion for two-wheeling fuel his belief that he can make a go of things.

Erdelyi says he “has tons of experience” in retail, having worked at Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap and, most pertinently, Cycles 54 in Wall Township. Red Bicycle is his first venture out on his own.

He’s also an avid cyclist, having won a national championship for 19-and-20-year-olds.

Red Bank’s a good fit, he said, because “the cycling community is heavy here,” and the town is clearly signaling an interest in human-powered transportation.

The studio will carry bikes priced from $200 to $12,000 – everything from children’s bikes to beach cruisers to fine racing machines. Brands include Scott, De Rosa, Wilier and HBBC, names not available elsewhere within 30 miles, or in the case of HBBC, anywhere else in New Jersey, Erdelyi, says.

“It’s for the general public,” not just racing enthusiasts, Erdelyi says of his stock.

Erdelyi, aided by a bike mechanic, plans to open Monday.

By JOHN T. WARD

After months of secrecy, the lawyer for the most vocal opponent of a proposed Hampton Inn in Red Bank has identified the moneybags paying for his services.

They’re the operators of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel on Hope Road in Tinton Falls.

Attorney Ron Gasiorowski ended his cat-and-mouse game over Stephen Mitchell’s backing Thursday night, when he told the borough zoning board that brothers Carey and Doran Tejfal of Tinton Falls Realty Lodging were picking up the tab for his services.

Gasiorowski, who has filed two pending lawsuits against borough boards over the hotel plan and appeared at numerous hearings on Mitchell’s behalf, had previously declined to tell the borough planning board who was paying his fees, citing attorney-client privilege.

But Gasiorowski dropped that objection at a zoning board hearing Thursday night convened specifically to weigh Mitchell’s claim that town officials erred in ruling last year that the planned hotel did not need a height variance.

Though the planning board has been hearing the hotel application since August, the height issue was kicked over to the zoning board in January because only that board can make that determination under the law, said zoning board attorney Kevin Kennedy.

Gasiorowski said he was disclosing the Tejfals’ names because he agreed with Kennedy, who maintained that without the disclosure, there would be a question of whether Mitchell, now in the position of an applicant, would be compliant with a borough ordinance requiring applicants to identify their principals. The law is aimed at having board members recuse themselves for potential conflicts of interest, and Kennedy said they could not comply if they did not know who was paying Mitchell’s fare.

The law is also aimed at identifying “out-of-town competitors” as objectors, because they “would not have standing to be objectors” under the law to bring challenges of the kind Mitchell filed, Kennedy said.

Though the Tejfals would appear to meet the definition of out-of-town competitors, the zoning board went ahead with its hearing after Gasiorowski told Kennedy that, while he has represented other Tejfal entities in other towns and lawsuits, he was not doing so in this case. Mitchell, he said, was his client, and the Tejfals were merely paying the bills.

A press release issued by DoubleTree to announce the October, 2010 opening of the Tinton Falls facility identified Tinton Falls Realty Lodging as a subsidiary of Hotels Unlimited. That family-owned company’s website says it owns 10 Radisson, Holiday and Days inns in Toms River, East Windsor and elsewhere, and identifies the Tejfall brothers as executives.

Mitchell, of Prospect Avenue, has consistently declined to answer reporters’ questions about his relationship to his backers. He maintains the six-story, 72-room hotel, proposed for a triangular lot on the site of a former Exxon Station at the foot of the Route 35 Cooper’s Bridge on the Navesink River, is too large for the location.

During the meat of the hearing, Gasiorowski appeared to elicit an acknowledgement from borough Engineer Christine Ballard that she had, in his words, committed “an honest mistake” by  applying the wrong height standard to the hotel property in her initial review of the Hampton plan, a decision that Gasiorowski maintains led planning and zoning director Donna Smith Barr to steer the case to the wrong board.

Though the hotel application is being heard by the planning board, Mitchell maintains it should be before the zoning board, where the criteria for winning variances are stiffer. He has also filed a lawsuit on the question.

The hearing on Mitchell’s challenge was scheduled to resume March 15.

Meantime, the planning board next meets on Monday night, and a resumption of the hotel hearing is on the agenda: RBPB agenda 030512