A rendering from the developer’s application for 40 apartments shows the public river walk officials say could be built at 26-28 Shrewsbury Avenue. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
The vacant gas station at 80 Rector Place. (photo by Brian Donohue)
The council unanimously approved a resolution that marks the first step toward adding the two properties – the gas station site at 80 Rector Place and the parking lot at 26-28 Shrewsbury Avenue – to a wide swath of town already designated an area in need of rehabilitation in 2017.
The designation does not make an area eligible for long-term tax abatements or the use of eminent domain, both of which require the heftier “area in need of redevelopment” designation under state land use laws.
But it does make projects eligible for financial and tax incentives, including five-year tax abatements, in which property owners pay a reduced rate that increases by twenty percent each year until it is fully taxed.
“It’s an easier way for municipalities to help create investment to a site without the long, involved process that redevelopment usually takes,” Red Bank Director of Community Development Shawna Ebanks told the council.
Ebanks, who serves as the borough’s top zoning and land use official, described negotiations with a property owner in which the idea for the designation had sprung.
Earlier this year, the owners of Red Bank’s Galleria complex applied to build a 40-unit apartment complex on the lot at 26-28 Shrewsbury Avenue, which sits on Navesink River across the street from the historic brick converted factory. (See previous coverage below).
RED BANK: GALLERIA OWNER SEEKS OK FOR 40 APARTMENTS ON RIVERFRONT
Ebanks told the council that plan, which has not yet been presented to the zoning or planning board for approval, has undergone changes since the initial application.
“We’ve had extensive conversations with them, to even redesign what they brought for us because what they brought wasn’t significant and did not serve the public as we would like,” she said.
The current version, Ebanks said, calls for the project by Sourlis International Realty Corp. to include a public access easement along the river and the construction of a “mini river walk” created and paid for by the developer.
“That has always been a goal of the borough,” Ebanks said of the river walk, the creation of which is a longstanding goal laid out in the 2023 Master Plan and other borough planning documents over the years.
Amid those talks, Ebanks said, “It was discussed that the designation of the site as an area in need of rehabilitation would be a benefit to the borough’s planning goals and create a welcoming site across the bridge into the municipality.”
The council’s recommendation now heads to the Planning Board for a formal designation. The measure would then go back to the council for a final vote on adding the parking lot – along with the nearby former Exxon station property – to the rehab zone.
In 2017, a large area of town between Monmouth Street and the West Front Street/Riverside Avenue corridor was declared an area in need of rehabilitation.
The 2023 Master Plan, however, called for the borough to “revisit this designation..to focus on a more targeted area for creation of a redevelopment plan.”
In the meantime, the old Exxon station has been a black hole where development plans have gone to die.
She said adding the property to the rehab area could eventually help spur development there and improve conditions in the town’s northern gateway, a prominent goal cited in the Master Plan.
In the interim, the owner of the nearby Colony House apartments has applied to create a parking lot there for residents.
Records and applications filed with the borough show that applicant Eli Newman of Lakewood, owner of 80 Rector Place LLC, received approvals to utilize ten parking spaces on the property in June. On August 23, he applied to create 23 additional parking spaces. That application was denied.
Ebanks said Colony House is seeking to use the lot for resident parking temporarily because they have lost parking spaces as a result of the ongoing construction of the 212-unit project being built by developer Saxum at 176 Riverside Avenue. The lot would only be used until the Saxum project is done.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
