NO TAX BREAK? NO PROBLEM. RED BANK BUILDER TRANSFORMS GATEWAY & SPURS REGRET

The 212-unit Commodore under construction at 176 Riverside Avenue in Red Bank this week. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)

By BRIAN DONOHUE

They said it couldn’t be done.

When officials with the Summit-based developer Saxum were planning to build a 212-unit apartment building at the foot of the Route 35 Cooper’s Bridge, they requested the Borough of Red Bank pass an ordinance making the project eligible for a 30-year property tax break.

The proposed Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement, a borough consultant told the borough’s redevelopment agency in 2021, was needed “in order to make the project economically viable.”

The tax break never happened. Bowing to a wave of resident opposition marked by packed meetings and a bumper crop of “No PILOT’ lawn signs across town, the Planning Board nixed the redevelopment designation state law requires for the tax abatement.

And, yet, somehow, five years later, the $71 million building rises, with the hulking structure now dominating the view at the borough’s northern gateway.

Workers could be seen last week framing out the northern portion of the complex closest to the Navesink River, and the building, dubbed The Commodore, is set to be finished next summer.

Mary Ellen-Mess, one of several organizers of the successful campaign to defeat the PILOT proposal, says she’s not surprised builder Saxum didn’t need the tax break after all. It was, she says, nothing but a ruse.

“Listen – all these developers plead the same thing,” she said. “And then they all make a bundle of money on it. Let’s face it – all of them, it’s a rogues’ gallery of greed we’ve got going.”

A spokesperson for Saxum did not reply to emailed questions from redbankgreen asking about how the developer was able to build without the tax break that was described as critical to the project.

But in recent weeks, there’s been another dizzying turnabout in the nascent life of the Commodore: the Chairman of the Red Bank Planning Board said he regrets his 2019 vote approving the project.

“Officially, I hate the way it looks,” Planning Board Chairman Dan Mancuso said during the July 8 Planning Board meeting.

Mancuso, one of eight board members who voted to approve the project in 2021, called it “one of my regrets of being here.”

Referring to a developer’s proposal for a similar-sized building proposed as part of the Red Bank train station on the agenda that night, (and one he said looked like the home of Darth Vader) he said: “I don’t feel this same way about this. I don’t think this is as bad as that.”

The view of The Commodore from Bodman Place this week.

Taken together, Mancuso’s expression of regret over his ‘yes” vote on the blueprints and Saxum’s eventual lack of a need for a PILOT create a plot-thickening backdrop as another developer, Denholtz, continues a likely pursuit of the same set of approvals for another massive project a few blocks south.

The Planning Board is currently in the midst of public hearings on a site plan for The Rail North, a 175-unit building that marks the first half of the train station redevelopment project.

Mancuso’s comments came amid a hearing last month in which members sent architects back to the drawing board with withering criticism over the design of the project.

Denholtz representatives have stated they also plan on asking for a PILOT agreement, and the borough’s own planner says the move is expected once the Planning Board ok’s the site plan.

While Planning Board and Borough Council have already approved a redevelopment plan that makes the train station project eligible for a PILOT, the council would still have to vote on the likely controversial measure.

Now, council members will have to consider that a developer just down the road made the same claims that turned out be, apparently, unfounded.

In 2019, the Planning Board granted approval for Saxum to build 212 apartments at the former Visiting Nurses Association site, including 32 units reserved for low- and moderate-income earners.

In 2021, they returned to the board seeking to have the zoning designation changed to an “area in need of redevelopment” under state law, from an “area in need of rehabilitation.” That would have made the 3.2-acre site eligible for a 30-year PILOT.

“This is primarily a financially driven plan, especially given, over the past year, the significant increase in construction materials, ” Kenneth DeRoberts, a consultant with Government Strategy Group, told the borough’s now defunct redevelopment agency in 2021.

Saxum’s request, he said, was “based on the fact that they need a PILOT from the municipality in order to make the project economically viable.”

Somehow, they found a way.

Monmouth County property records show an April, 2025 mortgage on the property from Kennedy-Wilson Capital of Beverly Hills, CA for $75.75 million.

The next month, Borough officials including Mayor Billy Portman and Borough Manager Jim Gant donned hard hats to shovel dirt at the groundbreaking.

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redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.