The project would replace three commercial buildings on Bridge Avenue and two houses on Oakland Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
UPDATE: The May 18 zoning board meeting has been cancelled, according to a notice on the borough website.
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposal for 32 new apartments across the street from the Red Bank train station is scheduled to go before the borough zoning board next week.
If approved, the project would add to a development boom around the station.
A rendering of the Bridge Avenue side of the proposed structure, with 120 feet of frontage facing the train station. Below, the properties to be developed; a star indicates the station. (Rendering by Michael James Monroe, Architect. Click to enlarge.)
The plan, by American Opportunity Zone Fund LLC, envisions a four-story building with frontage on Bridge Avenue and Oakland Street.
The properties are owned by Mary and Roy Jennings, a Holmdel couple who operated the Chowda House restaurant at 78 Bridge for several years; that space is now home to Mi Lupitas restaurant.
According to plans filed with the borough, the restaurant would be razed, as would a two-story brick structure at 72 Bridge that’s home to 90 Degrees Gallery; a shack that was long the home of Dave’s Car Wash; and two single-family homes, at 128 and 132 Oakland Street.
Notably, the project would wrap around 82 Bridge Avenue, a two-story building with a distinctive balcony on the corner of Oakland and Bridge.
To proceed to construction, the developer needs a density variance from the board. The zoning allows for up to 35 dwelling units per acre, but the proposal equates to 54 per acre.
The plan calls for 45 parking spaces at ground level beneath a portion of the structure. Local ordinances call for 47, so a variance is required.
Here’s the site plan.
The property, which faces the southbound platform of the New Jersey Transit station, is also across the street from the Rail, a 57-unit apartment complex built alongside the tracks by Denholtz Properties.
Denholtz has gobbled up multiple sites surrounding the station with plans to create a new development spanning several blocks, redbankgreen reported in March, 2022.
Just yards to the north, at 200 Monmouth Street, is the revived Anderson storage building, home to a Sickles Market, a liquor store and a coffee shop, as well as offices and salons. One block east, at 170 Monmouth, is the Red Bank Standard, a five-story former office building that’s now home to luxury apartments. And a short walk east has two facing properties set for development: 121 Monmouth, with 45 apartments approved last November; and 120 Monmouth, with 32 units.
Former Red Bank mayor Ed McKenna, an attorney, represented the developers of 120 and 121 Monmouth on their board applications; he’s also representing American Opportunity Zone Fund, according to filings.
The development firm’s CEO is Warren Diamond, who also heads American Residential Opportunity Fund LLC. In September, 2021, that company won approval to build 10 apartments at 273 Shrewsbury Avenue, on the northeast corner at Drs. James Parker Boulevard.
That project has not gotten underway. Diamond told redbankgreen recently that he is working with another entity to develop the site.
The zoning board meets at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 18, at borough hall, 90 Monmouth Street.
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