HPC Attorney Michele Donato and Chairman Chris Fabricant at Wednesday night’s meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission began a teardown this week.
The target: the 2018 borough ordinance that purportedly gave the advisory body “teeth” but has proven “very wanting,” in the words of one member.
Mayor Billy Portman opens the reorganization meeting as Attorney Dan Antonelli looks on, above; new fire chiefs were sworn in, below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank entered into a period of transition Wednesday night, as a new mayor took the helm of a government that’s slated to vanish in seven months.
Billy Portman, a political neophyte who helped dismantle the local Democratic machine last year, was sworn into the town’s highest elected position pledging he’ll “keep the ship running smoothly” in the interim.
HPC members Barbara Boas and Paul Sullivan at Wednesday’s meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A longtime member of Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission has quit, slamming what she called the “authoritarianism” of its new chairman.
After 12 years of volunteering, Barbara Boas attended her final HPC meeting Wednesday night, telling redbankgreen she was done with the way Chairman Chris Fabricant runs things.
The new owners of 26 Wallace Street plan to refurbish it as a single-family home. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A 19th-century house in downtown Red Bank, spared by public clamor from the wrecking ball earlier this year, has new owners who hope to restore its onetime “splendor,” redbankgreen has learned.
A one-month extension for Broadwalk, now scheduled to end Labor Day, is up for council discussion. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Correction: The council workshop and regular sessions are slated for Thursday, not Wednesday as originally reported here.
By JOHN T. WARD
For its only public sessions of August, the Red Bank council will meet virtually Thursday night.
Among the business on the workshop and regular agendas: filling the posts of borough attorney and tax assessor; extending the Broadwalk dining plaza by a month; authorizing searches for a “strategic municipal planner” and a “municipal vision planner;” and greenlighting a “porchfest” event.
A view of Broadwalk at lunchtime last October. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank merchants and residents pressed officials with concerns regarding a third season of Broadwalk at a community forum Wednesday night.
With less than a month to go before a disruptive streetscape makeover project wraps up, they called for efforts to address litter, traffic, speeding on residential streets and more.
A chart used in a budget presentation last week shows a tax increase of just $5.03 for the year for the owner of a home assessed at the borough average of $469,876. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The owner of a typical Red Bank home would pay just $5 more in local property taxes under the 2022 budget up for adoption Wednesday night, according to Councilwoman Angela Mirandi.
On the flip side, the average residential valuation on which the tax will be applied is up 16 percent in the past year, said Mirandi, who heads the council’s finance committee.
The Dublin House Pub’s plan called for the enclosure of the existing porch and balconies. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s Dublin House Pub should be allowed to make cosmetic changes previously rejected by the borough Historic Preservation Commission, the zoning board ruled Thursday night.
An elevation showing the Monmouth Street side of Michael Salerno’s proposed mixed-used project, looking west. (Rendering by SOME Architects. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank development first proposed in late 2019 is scheduled to return to the zoning board Thursday night.
Also on the agenda: an appeal by the Dublin House Pub. More →
For years a landmark used by locals giving travel directions, a flat, tooth-shaped dentist’s sign in Red Bank popped into 3D this week.
The office building at 268 Broad Street was erected in 1979.
By JOHN T. WARD
Why was a modern office building that’s not in a historic district required to get Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission approval for planned remodeling work Wednesday night?
The building’s owner didn’t know, and he’s the lawyer for the borough planning board, for which the HPC is an advisory panel.
One of downtown Red Bank’s most distinctly modern office buildings is up for a makeover, according to an application scheduled for review by the Historic Preservation Commission this week.
Downtown Investors has dropped its plans to demolish the house at 26 Wallace Street for parking. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A century house targeted for demolition in downtown Red Bank has been spared the wrecking ball, redbankgreen has learned.
Angela Mirandi, in second pane from left in the top row, attended her first session as a council member. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See CORRECTION below
By JOHN T. WARD
Three years after a fire suppression system leak forced a shutdown of Red Bank’s Senior Center, the borough council approved nearly $2 million in financing for repairs Wednesday.
As in the past, members clashed over the reasons for the time elapsed and cost. Added to the acrimony was a new element: blame for failure to identify money recently found sitting idle in old accounts and now earmarked for repairs.
Unmentioned during the virtual meeting was a lawsuit, announced hours earlier, that seeks to remove Angela Mirandi, who attended for the first time as a council member.
Downtown Investors plans to demolish the house at 26 Wallace Street for parking. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Members of Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission split Wednesday night over its next steps regarding a developer’s plan to demolish a century house for parking.
The HPC also approved remodeling plans for a building at a key downtown intersection after the owner revised plans that were rejected a month ago.
Downtown Investors plans to demolish the house at 26 Wallace Street to create a parking lot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Historic-value claims about a century house targeted for demolition in downtown Red Bank are “in error,” a developer’s land-use expert told the planning board Monday night.
Members of the Historic Preservation Commission were itching to differ.
A rendering of the office building Downtown Investors wants to erect at 21 Linden Place. (Image by Stephen J. Gassert Design. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank developer hopes to expand its holdings by erecting a new office building downtown.
But first, Downtown Investors says it needs planning board approval to demolish a house estimated to be 132 years old in order to create parking.
Denholtz Properties is adding the parking lot at 133 Broad Street to its portfolio, which already includes the office building at 137-139 Broad, at right. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A privately owned downtown Red Bank parking lot that all but screams for development is about to get a new owner, redbankgreen has learned: the borough’s busiest builder. More →
The Dublin House Pub’s plan called for the enclosure of an existing porch and balconies. (Rendering by Michael Savarese Associates. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission nixed proposed makeovers of two downtown buildings as inappropriate Wednesday night.
A third plan, to give a corner building a “midcentury modern” look, sailed to approval.
Denholtz Properties plans to redo the existing building at Broad Street and Reckless Place. (Rendering by Rotwein + Blake. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Buildings at two high-visibility corners in downtown Red Bank would get makeovers under plans scheduled for review this week by the Historic Preservation Commission.
Here’s what’s on deck.
Public meetings at borough hall will go remote again, and visitors and employees will be required to wear masks. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank issued a declaration Friday evening “strongly urging” mask-wearing in stores and restaurants to minimize transmission of the resurgent COVID-19 virus.
Mask-wearing in publicly owned buildings will be mandated.
Del DalPra at Count Basie Park in August, 2021. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After just nine months on the job, Red Bank parks and recreation director Louis ‘Del’ DalPra is leaving the position.
Mayor Pasquale Menna, right, and Congressman Frank Pallone were masked-up at the Red Bank reorganization January 1. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna is expected to issue an executive order mandating indoor mask-wearing to slow the spread of the resurgent COVID-19 virus.
The order, which could come as soon as Thursday, was motivated by “the pain that is being felt in our community,” Menna said at the monthly council workshop Wednesday night.
The house at 26 Wallace Street, believed to have been built in 1889, would be razed to expand a parking lot under a developer’s proposal. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A decision on a developer’s plan to raze a 132-year-old house in downtown Red Bank for parking was postponed Thursday night.
The plan may offer the first significant test of powers granted to the Historic Preservation Commission three years ago.
Veronica Mogilevich in her new boutique, Another Sunday, on Monmouth Street. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A clothing boutique debuts; a gift shop and a restaurant plan openings; a would-be cannabis retailer stakes a claim; and a major retail building changes hands.
Read all about the latest business activity in downtown Red Bank in this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.