Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

FAIR HAVEN: CONCEPT PLANS UNVEILED

fh-boro-hall-concept-011019-2-500x226-2869145Fair Haven’s new borough hall could look like this, its architect said. The view is from the firehouse on the opposite side of River Road(Rendering by Eli Goldstein. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

hot-topic_03-220x138-2130637Fair Haven officials rolled out a set of concept drawings Thursday night for a pair of new borough buildings at the heart of an ambitious consolidation plan.

They also unveiled a timetable for the proposal, which calls for a domino chain of real estate acquisition, construction and the sale of property to help fund it all.

fh-dpw-concept-011019-500x249-7224897A concept plan for the new DPW offices and garages, which would front on Third Street at the present site. Below, architect Eli Goldstein explains the plan to residents. (Rendering by Eli Goldstein. Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

eli-goldstein-011019-220x146-9060562Before an audience of several hundred residents at the Knollwood School, architect Eli Goldstein showed elevation drawings of a structure to house the Department of Public Works, on a portion of its current site on Third Street, and a three-story building to house the police department and other municipal operations on River Road.

The new borough hall, the centerpiece of the project, would be on the site of a Sunoco station that went out of business in late 2011 and has been vacant since. The town is in purchase negotiations, Mayor Ben Lucarelli told redbankgreen earlier this week.

“Keep in mind that these are just concept plans,” Goldstein told the gathering. “They are showing you some general ideas we have discussed with your governing body to try to understand their functional requirements and how they might be satisfied.”

Goldstein started with photos, displayed on a large screen, capturing conditions at the existing police station and the DPW yard.

“You may be shocked at how much deterioration they’ve suffered over the years,” he said, before clicking through images of structural rot, water-sogged insulation and more. The police station has doorways so narrow that even if a wheelchair user could get into the building, “they couldn’t get into the rooms,” he said.

A photo showing a tangle of wiring installed over several generations above a drop ceiling in the station house was evidence of “very hazardous” conditions, he said.

The police station was built as the Fisk Street School a century ago, and the DPW yard was erected in the 1970s as a “temporary” facility, borough Administrator Theresa Casagrande told the audience. Both are located “in the middle of residential neighborhoods, which is less than optimal for both operations and the residents’ quality of life,” she said.

Officials have previously said that rehabilitating those structures is not economically feasible.

A Gantt chart timetable shown Thursday calls for a process extending through 2021. First, the DPW operation would be reduced and relocated to the northerly part of its 2.3-acre property, along Third Street, with one acre to the south divided up for sale as residential lots. Officials have previously said they could get 10 residences on the land.

A proposal to build a 2,000-square-foot lawn maintenance shed at Fair Haven Fields was scrapped after the advisory committee that oversees the nature area and ballfields objected, Lucarelli told redbankgreen earlier this week. That equipment can be accommodated at the reconfigured current site, he said.

Construction of the new borough hall would follow. A plan to remodel the existing borough hall, also on River Road, and turn it into a combination public library and community center, would have to follow the relocation of government operations to the new building, Casagrande said.

The current police HQ, which adjoins the community center, would also be sold to help pay for the project. Cost estimates have yet been finalized, Lucarelli said this week.

Tucked into a $3.2 million bond ordinance passed in October is an unspecified amount of funding for the acquisition of the Sunoco site.

Lucarelli said the whole project can be “revenue-neutral” as a result of real estate sales proceeds and possible state financing help for the library makeover.

In response to a question from Church Street resident Steve Knowlton, Goldstein said the new facilities would incorporate “the most energy-efficient” windows and other environmentally friendly features as the town can afford.

A full set of drawings, as well as the timetable and a rationale for the project, can be seen here.

 

 

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
redbankgreen Classics
Partyline
JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION
Performers at Red Bank’s Juneteenth community celebration Sunday at Johnny Jazz Park. (photo by Brian Donohue)      
BUTTERFLIES LOVE THE WEED
Save the monarch, plant butterfly weed. (photo and text by Partyline contributor Roseann DalPra)  
LANTERNFLY PARTY
An invasive ailanthus tree sprouting in front of the US Post Office on Broad Street is covered with invasive spotted lantern fly nymphs Wedn ...
STREETCORNER SERENADE
An Irish doodle named Cheddar listens to native New Jerseyan, singer/songwriter and former Houston resident Tom Foti, (identified in the hea ...
Red Bank 5K Fun!!!
Red Bank Classic – June 14th, 2025 (photo by Partyline contributor Adam Kaplan)  
RAINBOW OVER RED BANK
Saturday, before and after the storm that rolled through town. (photo by Partyline contributor Thomas Doremus)    
Mini Ballers Bring the Heat at Fusion Basketball School
As the temperatures heat up, so does the competition in the mini baller clinic at Fusion School of Basketball. These little tykes are intens ...
DOZENS OF PLEIN AIR ARTISTS “PAINT RED BANK”
Plein air artists take over town for first ever "Paint Red Bank" event. (click to read)
RED BANK: SIGN ON ICONIC DANNY’S STEAK HOUSE COMES DOWN
The sign hanging from the shuttered Danny's Steak House comes down ten months after a manager reported Danny's Steakhouse would be back "bet ...
FOR YANKEES FANS, GOOD TRASH PICKIN’
A collection of framed photographs of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other New York Yankees greats was placed curbside along with a ...
RED BANK: NEW HANDICAPPED PARKING, WEST SIDE MEETING PLANNED
New handicapped parking sign West Side advocate had pressed for is installed, with meeting planned to discuss other concerns. (click to read ...
SUNSET AT SUMMER’S START
Crazy sunset clouds shot from Monmouth Boat Club on the Friday evening at the start of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer. ...
SIDEWALK GOES FROM WORST TO FIRST
P (photo by Brian Donohue) What had been, in our estimation – and apparently in the eyes of the several people who have emailed and te ...
RED BANK: PEERING FROM ON HIGH, ACROSS THE DECADES
Roofers on the Azalea Red Bank top off the project in the shadow of a sculpture depicting another generation of construction workers who toi ...
BRICK FACELIFT CONTINUES ON MONMOUTH STREET
A million-dollar brick sidwalk makeover of Monmouth Street in Red Bank continues.
JAY AND SILENT EAGLE
A very loud blue jay squawks at an indiferent bald eagle in a treetop alongside the Swimming River in Red Bank this week. (Partyline photo b ...
PIZZA LOVING SQUIRREL SPOTTED IN RED BANK
Pizza squirrel spotted in Red Bank. (click to read)
GET YOUR MA SOMETHIN’ NICE AT THE RED BANK FARMERS MARKET
It’s a beautiful and sunny Mother’s Day for the first instance of the farmer’s market, held every Sunday, beginning in May ...
SIGN? WHAT SIGN?
Folks in Red Bank Wednesday exercising their riparian rights to access tidal waters first encoded into Roman law in 500 AD and later adopted ...
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Partyline contributor captures photo of backyard fox.