Security video recorded the daytime theft of a white Mercedes from the 7-Eleven at Maple Avenue and West Front Street last August, with the shocked owner giving chase on foot.
By JOHN T. WARD
While towns across New Jersey and beyond grapple with rising numbers of high-priced-vehicle thefts and attempted thefts, local officials are urging residents not to make it easy for perpetrators.
The borough-owned Tesla gets recharged at a station intended for public use. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s borough government is not yet ready to pull the plug on a donated Tesla sedan, even though keeping the vehicle charged up has been a challenge, interim Business Administrator Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
See UPDATE below
A Shrewsbury man was unhurt as he attempted to stop the theft of his car in downtown Red Bank Tuesday, police said.
Mayo Auto Service owner Pete Soviero outside his Monmouth Street shop last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Denholtz Properties juggernaut continues, with the Red Bank real estate development company about to acquire another key block of sites in town.
Mayo Auto Service owner Pete Soviero has agreed to sell the Monmouth Street property alongside the train station that’s been home to his business for the past 18 years, he confirmed to redbankgreen last week.
But the shop is “not going anywhere” for several years, he said.
The council meeting was the final one scheduled for 2021. (Screenshot from Zoom. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council’s final regular meeting of 2021 included a new police contract, a plan to recombine workshop and regular sessions, a new used Tesla, and praise for a departing colleague.
Here’s an overview.
Nancy and Phil Blackwood with the car they’ve offered to the town. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A fire-engine red Tesla sedan may become part of the Red Bank municipal fleet this week, pending the acceptance of a proposed donation by a borough couple.
Red Bank Patrolman Stan Balmer and his K9 unit partner Hunter, seen here during a training exercise, helped track down suspects who fled the scene of a crash Thursday evening, police Chief Darren McConnell said Friday.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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 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.)
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.
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.)
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.