
By JOHN T. WARD


Denholtz Associates is scheduled to go before the borough zoning board next month seeking approvals for the construction of 10 two-bedroom townhomes on what’s now a gravel parking lot on Boat Club Court.
Dubbed Southbank at Navesink, the project’s legal address is 16 & 22 West Front Street. The downtown site looks north across the river over the roofs of the Monmouth Boat Club and the North Shrewsbury Ice Boat & Yacht Club.
Denholtz’s plan calls for five one-story units topped by five two-story units, with 26 parking spots for tenants underneath the structure and eight more exposed, according to plans. Here are the floor plans: Denholtz.Southbank. Architec. 16&22 W. Front St. Z13066
Variances are needed for the absence of commercial uses on the first floor and for floor-area ratio, according to a filing by the developer.
The half-acre site has remained untouched even as two prior development plans won town approvals.
In 2004, a firm called Riverwalk Development was okayed for a six-story building consisting of 24 residential units and two parking levels.
The plan was amended three years later by KHov, a unit of Hovnanian Enterprises, calling for a four-story, 15-unit condominium project, but that, too, went unbuilt as a collapse in real estate market followed soon after.
In 2015, KHov entered into a deal to sell the property to Jetsun Enterprises, a startup that hoped to incorporate the site into a plan to redevelop the borough-owned tennis courts in Marine Park. But the effort fizzled.
At present, Denholtz doesn’t own the site, which actually consists of two lots, one of which is owned by a Hoboken-based limited liability corporation called 325 Adams LLC, and leased to KHOV under 99-year lease entered into in 2005, according to records on file with the Monmouth County Clerk.
The zoning board has slated the hearing for 6:30 p.m. on April 4.
But first, Denholtz officials are scheduled to appear at the planning board Monday night on their request to change the facade of the office building at 116-120 Chestnut Street, which is part of the massive office-residential-commercial project called the Rail now under construction alongside the Red Bank train station.