The new owner of the former Love Lane tuxedo space also owns the four-story 12 Broad Street, just around the corner. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

One of downtown Red Bank’s more glaring eyesore buildings is about to get a gut job.

The owners of the highly successful 12 Broad Street have acquired the former Love Lane tuxedo space around the corner at 23 West Front Street, partner Nima Nili confirmed Monday.

The $550,000 purchase price is less than one-third the $1.75 million  Holmdel investor Frank Cannarozzo paid for the building in 2007, property records show. It’s also a steep drop from the $1 million the previous owner paid in 2004.

Love Lane relocated to 66 Broad Street nine years ago, and the building has remained vacant ever since, scaring off potential buyers with it’s dirt-floor basement and termite-damaged first floor. An art gallery that was said to be planned for the building never materialized.

What do Nili and his partners see in it?

“Value,” he tells redbankgreen. “We think that Red Bank has a very promising future.”

Nili said the two-story, 6,200-square-foot structure will be gutted for renovation, in the hope of landing a single tenant for the whole thing, or a retailer in the 3,500 SF ground floor and offices upstairs. No tenants have yet been lined up, he said, and remodeling work could begin in about three months.

In recent years, Nili and his partners have spent millions resurrecting the once-moribund 12 Broad, where tenants include the ground floor restaurant Biagio and the jewelry seller Alex and Ani. In the offices above are architectural firms, an energy trading company and a headhunting firm, among others.

“We’ve had great success at 12 Broad, and we think we’ll have great success here,” Nili said.