RED BANK: TWO VIEWS OF VEHICLE THEFT
A pair of videos show a team of thieves stealing of a late-model Mercedes sedan in Red Bank Friday morning.
As seen below, the getaway nearly resulted in a collision with an ambulance.
RED BANK: LUXURY CAR RENTAL CLUB OK’D
The proposed luxury car rental showroom would occupy the storefront at 21 East Front Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Need a Lamborghini for a day? A luxury car club approved for space in downtown Red Bank Thursday night will rent you one for just $1,300 per.
Also OK’d by the zoning board: a personal training gym in a residential neighborhood.
RED BANK: CAR SHOW MARKS EVENT REVIVAL
After a year up on blocks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Doc Holiday Classic Car Show returned to Red Bank’s White Street parking lot Sunday.
With 270 vehicles on display and hundreds of car lovers admiring them, the event marked the return of large-scale public events following months of restrictions on gatherings. It was also the first in the lot since a makeover of the parking facility, which also hosts major spring-and-fall food festivals per year. One, the Guinness Oyster Festival, is scheduled to return September 26.
The car show, a scholarship fundraiser named for a late fire chief, is hosted by volunteer firefighters from the borough’s Liberty Hose company. Check out additional photos below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: MUMFORD SHRINKS PLAN AGAIN
The latest changes to plan for 234-240 Shrewsbury Avenue reduced the building to three stories, from four, shown below. (Renderings by Thomas J. Brennan Architects. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Developer Roger Mumford has again reduced the size of a proposed apartment building on Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank.
Whether the zoning board will hear the details at its July 15 meeting is unclear, however. Also on the ambitious agenda: a mixed-used project next door to the borough library; an “exotic car rental” business in a downtown office building; and a gym on residential property.
RED BANK: AWFUL INTERSECTION FIXED
The axle-killing potholes and front-end-scraping dips are gone, and the final touches on a makeover were underway at a key Red Bank intersection Tuesday.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
RED BANK: POLICE BUST UP CAR RALLY
Red Bank police busted up a car rally in the parking lot of the Molly Pitcher Inn early Sunday afternoon, police Chief Darren McConnell told redbankgreen.
Police determined that the gathering violated Governor Phil Murphy’s March 21 “stay home” executive order barring a wide range of activities, McConnell said.
“The participants were cooperative and left the area without incident,” he said. (Click to enlarge.)
LITTLE SILVER: CAMPAIGN SIGNS SPARK IRE
Ingrid Garcia says this video she recorded shows Little Silver GOP Chairman Stuart Van Winkle harassing her and her husband in their shop. (Video by Ingrid Garcia. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The mom-and-pop owners of a Little Silver auto detailing shop say they have come under attack by supporters of Mayor Bob Neff in recent days for supporting his challenger in next week’s Republican primary election.
Exhibit A, they say, is a video showing them in a tense confrontation last Thursday with local GOP Chairman Stuart Van Winkle.
RED BANK: NO INJURIES IN CAR FIRE
The driver and occupants, if any, of car that caught fire while being driven on Maple Avenue in Red Bank escaped without injury shortly after midnight Tuesday. The vehicle, a Mercedes, was destroyed. Further details weren’t immediately available. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
LITTLE SILVER: TWOFER SALE AT SICKLES?
No one was injured, police said, when a Mercedes SUV and a sedan wound up in the same parking space, one atop the other, at Sickles Market in Little Silver shortly after noon Friday.
Volunteer firefighters from Little Silver and Red Bank were on the scene, working to separate the vehicles, which had a light pole pinned between them. Police were investigating the cause of the accident. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: STATION CRAVES DUNKINS
The station at the corner of Newman Springs Road and Shrewsbury Avenue would be razed and rebuilt to include the doughnut shop. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five years after their plan to add a 7-Eleven to an existing Shell station in Red Bank was shot down, the site’s owners are going back before borough zoners with a new plan: a Dunkin’ Donuts as part of a gas-‘n-go.
RED BANK: WAWA MEGASTORE PLAN YANKED
Former Red Bank mayor Ed McKenna, left, grilled Wawa engineer Mark Whitaker over the proposal at a zoning board hearing in March. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
[UPDATE: This post contains comments from site ower Frank Sala, who was unavailable at the time of the original posting.]
By JOHN T. WARD
Wawa’s coffee, subs and gasoline prices may have earned it a devoted following, but a controversial plan to build a supersized convenience store and filling station on Red Bank’s southern border has been withdrawn, redbankgreen has learned.
RED BANK: BERGEN PLACE MAKEOVER NEARS
The intersection of Broad Street and East Bergen Place was racked with potholes Tuesday morning, shortly before a borough crew arrived to do some patching. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
One of Red Bank’s nastiest pothole clusters got a temporary fix Tuesday.
A more permanent one is in the works, borough officials said.
RED BANK: TRAFFIC TALK SLOWS WAWA PLAN
The Wawa site plan, with the store at top and gas pump island shown in yellow, calls for the creation of a new center lane on Newman Springs Road allowing motorists traveling in both directions to make left turns. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Like a motorist stuck in rush-hour traffic, a supersized Wawa convenience store and filling station proposed for a problematic Red Bank intersection inched forward Thursday night.
At issue as the zoning board weighs the plan: whether the project would make congestion worse or improve traffic flow near the intersection of Newman Springs Road and Broad Street.
RED BANK: WAWA TOUTS TRAFFIC PLAN
A site plan for the proposed project shows the store at center, the fueling area as the yellow rectangle, and center lane left-turn markings on Newman Springs Road, at bottom. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Rather than worsening conditions for motorists, a proposed Wawa convenience store and filling station in Red Bank would come with roadway upgrades to improve traffic flow and safety near a busy intersection, witnesses told the borough zoning board Thursday night.
RED BANK: NEW IMPOUND LOT EYED
The lot, on Central Avenue, will allow police to store 15 to 20 vehicles, says Chief Darren McConnell. (Photo by Google Maps. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Motorists whose cars and trucks are impounded by Red Bank police won’t have to travel as far as in the recent past to recover them, under a lease in the works for a new storage yard location.
The deal would also solve a vexing logistical problem for police, Chief Darren McConnell told the borough council last week.
RED BANK: WAWA GAS STATION PROPOSED
A used-car dealership on the southern border of Red Bank could become a combination convenience store and gas station if a plan filed with the borough wins approval.
RED BANK: DAY CARE KEEPS ON TRUCKIN’
Monmouth Day Care’s annual Touch-a-Truck fundraiser returns this Saturday to the borough middle school. (Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge.)
From the neighbor’s house to the White House, there’s no denying that big rig trucks, emergency equipment and other heavy-duty machines hold a special appeal for kids of all ages — and when the opportunity presents itself to climb into the driver’s seat, it’s a rare treat indeed.
Ask the staff of Red Bank’s Monmouth Day Care Center and they’ll surely agree that the safely supervised combination of kids and trucks is a winning formula — and when the Touch-a-Truck event returns to the parking lot of Red Bank Middle School this Saturday morning, it will mark the eighth annual appearance of a successful FUNraising vehicle that’s well worth waiting for.
RED BANK: DOC HOLIDAY CAR SHOW SHINES
With 370 vehicles on display, there wasn’t enough room for “one more Volkswagen” at the 15th annual Doc Holiday Classic Car Show in Red Bank Sunday, according to firefighter Bobby Holiday, son of the late volunteer for whom the event is named.
Blue skies and tolerable summer temperatures drew a large crowd to the event, which featured blinding chrome, vivid color and a wide array of automotive designs. Pop the hood for more pix below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK:CLASSIC CAR SHOW RETURNS
There’s no telling who will make an appearance when the members of Liberty Hose Fire Company return to White Street this Sunday for the annual Red Bank Firefighters (a.k.a. Doc Holiday) Classic Car Show.
They may have been forced to “get out of Dodge” when the borough auctioned off their landmark White Street firehouse back in 2014 — but that hasn’t stopped the members of Red Bank’s Liberty Hose fire company from bringing their Doc Holiday Car Show back to the “Ol’ Car Corral” of the White Stree parking lot each year at this time.
Returning for a 15th annual fantasia of classic chrome, fabulous fins, atom-age accents, polished power plants and bodacious Dagmars, the local tradition otherwise known as the Red Bank Firefighters Car Show (and named unofficially in honor of volunteer responder Robert “Doc” Holiday) takes center stage again this Sunday.
RED BANK: ELECTRIC CAR SHOW SLATED
Thinking of going electric with your next car? The Red Bank Environmental Commission plans to host Red Bank Electric Car Day later this month to juice awareness of electric vehicles and other alternatives to fossil-fuel burners.
SHREWSBURY: DAYCARE CENTER APPROVED
Lightbridge Academy plans to build a facility at Shrewsbury Avenue and Harvard Way. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A rapid makeover of Shrewsbury’s northwestern corner continues with the approval last week of a large new daycare facility.
The borough planning board OK’d a plan by Lightbridge Academy, a franchisor of educational centers for children from infancy to kindergarten, to build a two-story, 11,600-square-foot facility with outdoor play areas on Shrewsbury Avenue.
FAIR HAVEN: INVESTORS BANK PLAN STALLS
The Investors Bank proposed for River Road would be identical to this branch in Woodbridge, the developer said. (Photo by M&M Realty Partners. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposed drive-thru bank on the site of a former filling station in Fair Haven ran out of gas Tuesday night.
The Investors Bank project encountered continuing objections to a traffic-flow plan that would put two driveways — for an entry and an exit — on River Road, which planning board members said raised child-safety concerns.
Also an issue: the brand-specific look of the one-story building, which called for a shallow glass atrium dome that one resident likened to a “blister.”
SHREWSBURY: CORNER GETTING A MAKEOVER
Chelsea Living, a senior citizens’s assisted-living facility, has been approved to replace the vacant former Shrewsbury Manor nursing home at Shrewsbury Avenue and Patterson Avenue, below. (Rendering by Meyer Design; photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A dowdy stretch of Shrewsbury roadway is in the midst of a makeover.
An old bunker-like warehouse building is gone from the northeast corner of Shrewsbury Avenue and Patterson Avenue, replaced by two new retail businesses. And at the the southeast corner, the overgrown former site of a nursing home is about to get a new assisted-living residence for seniors.
FAIR HAVEN: BANK HEARING DELAYED AGAIN
For the second time since it began in May, a hearing on a proposed Investors Savings Bank branch on the former site of a Sunoco station on River Road in Fair Haven has been postponed at the applicant’s request. The matter, scheduled for Monday night, is now slated for July 28.
Meantime, the board is expected to continue its review of the town’s Master Plan, among other matters.
For redbankgreen’s prior coverage of the bank plan, click here. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: CLASSIC CARS PARK IT HERE
The White Street municipal lot is the scene for eye-popping autos of every era at Sunday’s 14th annual Red Bank Firefighters (a.k.a. Doc Holiday) Car Show. (Click to enlarge.)
Their century-old stationhouse at 40 White Street may have been decommissioned and, as reported here on redbankgreen, green-lighted for a retail/residential conversion. But that hasn’t stopped the volunteer firefighters of Red Bank’s Liberty Hose Company from returning to their long-time home turf for an event that’s taken its place among the borough’s most colorful annual traditions: the Red Bank Firefighters Classic Car Show.