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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Anticipating possible challenges to its authority on two fronts, Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission was in a muscle-flexing posture Wednesday night.
Downtown Investors plans to raze the house at 26 Wallace Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank developer plans to demolish a downtown house to expand a parking lot, with an eye toward future building.
A concept drawing of the proposed basement jazz bar. (Rendering by George Fett. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A food market and jazz bar proposed for downtown Red Bank won praise from the business community and approval by the zoning board Thursday night.
The OceanFirst Bank headquarters was the subject of a reverse appeal case settled Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Bombarded by criticism from the business community, the Red Bank council on Wednesday dropped a plan to pursue a new round of “reverse appeals” against commercial properties it believed to be undertaxed.
But first, the council approved the settlement of an older reverse appeal that will boost the taxable value of a downtown building by 69 percent over three years. And battles over cases filed in 2018 continue.
Parking consultants Carrie Krasnow and Brian Bartholomew listen to restaurateur George Lyristis at the Red Bank Middle School Monday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Like visitors circling the White Street lot in search of a spot, Red Bank merchants and residents took another spin at solving downtown parking issues Monday night.
In the same auditorium where a similar forum was held 14 months ago, about 50 participants showed up at the borough middle school to advocate for improvements, many of them echoes of long-standing complaints and suggestions.
Downtown property owner John Bowers hired an architect to show the borough what it might build without involving a private developer. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Instead of trying to entice a private developer with high-profit-margin sweeteners like apartments and retail space, what if Red Bank addressed its downtown parking problem simply by building a “pure” garage itself?
That’s what landlord John Bowers wants to know, and he’s on a campaign to head off the borough’s White Street redevelopment effort before it leads both taxpayers and merchants over a cliff.
Two years after the death of its owner, the house at 27 Linden Place in Red Bank is slated for demolition this week.
Doug Cavanaugh, seen at right in 2009 painting a hitching post he installed outside the house, left the property in his will to Saint James Roman Catholic Church, whose schools he’d attended.
Fees for parking in downtown lots would double, to $1 per hour, while metered spots on the street would rise 50 percent, to $1.50 an hour. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s parking fees are going up.
The borough council approved rate increases Wednesday night, billing the action as a “compromise” with downtown business owners.
Still, merchants decried the hikes, which they said will further alienate potential visitors already turned off by metering, aggressive enforcement and costly tickets. More →
Fees for parking in downtown lots would double, while metered spots on the street would see a 50-percent increase. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s council laid two controversial proposals on the table Wednesday night:
• a budget that debuts with a 5.5-percent property-tax increase
• and a plan to soften the blow to taxpayers with a sharp increase in parking fees.
The backlash to the parking plan was immediate, both in the audience and on the governing body’s dais.
Zoning officer Donna Smith Barr leaves the job this week after 26 years. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The cliches compete: it’s tempting to say Donna Smith Barr has had a front-row seat on Red Bank’s two-decade-long bounceback from “Dead Bank” to today’s bustling burg. But it’s probably more accurate to say she’s been the gatekeeper.
Whether you wanted to put a deck on your house or turn a downtown store into a restaurant, Barr’s office has been the first stop at borough hall. And if she spoke or wrote the word “variance” in response, it probably wasn’t your last, as it would mean the time and expense of making one’s case before the zoning or planning board.
“I’m glad I don’t have to tell people they need variances anymore,” Barr told redbankgreen Tuesday. A single instance is one thing, “but when you do it for 26 years, that’s enough.”
Jim Lin, owner of Oriental Empire, said customers of his Ocean Township restaurant urged him to open one in Red Bank. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
In this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn, we’ve got details on these recent developments in ever-churning downtown Red Bank:
• Oriental Empire, a restaurant offering a mix of Asian cuisines, opened last month at 54 English Plaza.
• A former sales associate at the recently departed Nirvana is opening her own women’s clothing store on Broad Street.
• A restaurant called Hansel & Griddle plans to open on West Front Street.
• A nail salon changes hands and rebrands.
• The space formerly occupied by office supply retailer Staples is turning into office space for a securities brokerage.
OceanFirst Bank will take space in a building that’s been a supermarket, a five-and-dime and home to a number of financial services companies over its 92-year history. (Click to enlarge)
By DANIELLE TEPPER
In recent decades, the white stone building at 73 Broad Street has been a home to many financial service companies: Provident Savings Bank, Prudential Securities, then Wachovia Securities, and most recently, Wells Fargo Bank.
The pattern resumes this spring with the expected arrival of OceanFirst Bank.
The ‘bridge‘ is in. Following a six-month construction sprint, securities broker Morgan Stanley Smith Barney completed the consolidation of its Red Bank offices into a single location at Broad Street and Linden Place this week, said Jay Herman, a principal in Downtown Investors, which owns the property. The expanded space includes a suspended structure linking two existing buildings, as seen at right last January. (Click to enlarge)
The recent opening of Lucki Clover, above, in a Broad Street space vacated last September, is seen as one of many indicators of a strengthening comeback. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Without question, the losses have been significant.
Over the past six months, as the global, national and regional economies have struggled to emerge from the wreckage of the 2008 credit meltdown, Red Bank’s retail market has continued to absorb hard-to-shake-off business departures.
Primas Home Cafe. Willy’s Cheesesteaks. Soapmarket. Later this month, Surray Luggage, a Broad Street fixture, will hold a liquidation sale.
But more so than in the recent past, the downtown real estate market has been marked by two noteworthy trends: faster refilling of storefronts, and the end of several key, longtime vacancies.
What’s it all add up to? In a word, recovery, says at least one downtown Churn watcher.
The addition will connect two existing buildings while permitting vehicles to pass underneath. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Framed by talk about its positive effects on lunchtime restaurant business, a plan for an office bridge between two downtown buildings won easy approval from the Red Bank zoning board Thursday night.
With no objectors present, the plan by property owner Downtown Investors drew a smattering of questions about window placement and parking, as well as praise by board members.
“I do want to say, another wonderful project by the Hermans,” said member Karen Waldmann, speaking of Downtown Investors principals Jay and Todd Herman.
The two Linden Place buildings above would be connected at the second floor, as seen in the rendering, below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
One of the Wall Street brokerages that help stock Red Bank’s downtown office population is looking skyward as it plans an expansion.
Morgan Stanley, which occupies nearly all of two adjoining office buildings on Broad Street and Linden Place, wants to connect them at the second-floor level, according to plans on file with the borough.
The big-box retailer will lease a space less than a quarter the size of its average store at 137-139 Broad Street.
Staples Inc., the big-box office supply retailer, is coming to Red Bank.
But the giant seller of everything from pens to desktop computers won’t be opening one of its warehouse-sized stores here. Instead, it’ll be trying out a relatively new micro store, dubbed Staples Copy & Print, that will feature the services of the print shops in the big-box Staples plus the top 1,000 items available on their shelves.
Jay Herman, principal of site owner Downtown Investors LLC, tells redbankgreen that Staples has signed a lease for 4,000 square feet at 137-139 Broad Street, three doors up from the intersection of Harding Road.
Pizza Fusion plans to take over the vacant space at left and the storefront now being vacated by Sole Solution, right.
The future home of Urban Outfitters, as seen in late February.