Architect Nelson Benavides discussing plans for 170 Monmouth Street, seen in in two renderings from the west. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A plan to turn a five-story office building opposite the Red Bank train station into rental apartments cleared its first hurdle at the borough zoning board Thursday night.
A plan by a Jersey City-based developer to convert a five-story Red Bank office building to apartments, and add 16 units, is on Thursday night’s zoning board agenda. See redbankgreen‘s earlier reporting here.
The plan calls for a craft-beer microbrewery in the former ARC thrift shop space at 77 Monmouth Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
For the second time in recent weeks, a craft beer operation has confirmed plans for a microbrewery in downtown Red Bank.
And according to Google Maps, it’s less than 500 feet away from the first.
The former shoe store space at 18 Broad Street is expected to house a new women’s clothing store in September. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
To the relief of downtown restaurateurs, a large vacant space is the heart of downtown will resume life as a retail business instead of joining the competition for diners, redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has learned.
Architect Mike Simpson led the business group’s forum at the Red Bank Middle School Thursday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Only 17 or so Red Bank residents turned out on a rainy night for a forum on downtown parking Thursday.
And to the chagrin of the merchant group that sponsored it, few of them seemed to agree that the need for a new parking garage, let alone massive new development to go along with it, has been proven.
A builder’s proposal calls for converting four floors of the five-story building to apartments, plus an addition with 16 more units, directly across Monmouth Street from the borough train station. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
One of Red Bank’s more prominent office buildings would be converted to apartments — and get new ones out back — under a proposal by a Jersey City-based developer, redbankgreen has learned.
The tower looms over homes on Prospect Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Little Silver council hired an attorney Monday night to help it determine if it’s stuck with a new a cell tower that’s dialed up widespread anger in the borough.
As special counsel, Kevin Starkey is expected to start out by reviewing some two years worth of correspondence and other records for guidance on how the governing body might proceed in dealing with the tower’s sole user so far: Verizon Wireless.
One of two anticipated public forums on issues related to parking in downtown Red Bank now has a date and location.
Two public forums are in the works on the question of what to do about parking in downtown Red Bank. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Residents, merchants and visitors could get two chances to weigh in on downtown Red Bank’s parking crisis — or whether one even exists — at two public events in coming weeks.
Both events were characterized at Wednesday night’s semimonthly council meeting as next-steps responses to five plans presented by would-be developers of the borough-owned parking lot on White Street.
Councilman and party chairman Ed Zipprich, flanked by fellow Democrats Erik Yngstrom and Kathy Horgan in January. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The three Democrats on the Red Bank council — and a candidate to join them there — endorsed a downtown parking solution that calls for a new White Street garage without additional development Tuesday.
The announcement set the course for a possible head-on collision with the governing body’s three Republicans, who have championed an approach that welcomed the possibility of hundreds of new housing units as well as a parking deck.
Red Bank’s Shrewsbury Avenue continued its recent makeover trend with the opening of a new pharmacy this week.
Read More
The former Fameabilia store space will be divided in two to house a craft brewery and a take-out restaurant. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[SEE CORRECTIONS BELOW]
By JOHN T. WARD
Nine years after its last tenant departed, and four years after it was approved for restaurant use, a large retail space in downtown Red Bank is slated to get two new tenants, redbankgreen has learned.
A standing-room crowd stuck around after the hourlong council meeting for nearly two hours of parking presentations. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
At an event with no equal in recent memory, and possibly in the 109-year history of the borough, five would-be developers trotted out plans to remake a large swath of downtown Red Bank Wednesday night.
Mixing elements of beauty pageant and planning board meeting, the special session of the borough parking committee drew a standing-room crowd to hear would-be builders tout their visions for massive parking and housing projects, some with retail thrown in as well.
The event was notable also for who was not there.
Yellow Brook principal Roger Mumford with a rendering of a building on the site of Atlantic Glass at the northwest corner of White Street and Maple Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Of the five proposed plans for White Street presented to the Red Bank parking committee Wednesday night, only one had what Roger Mumford’s had: a lock on two adjoining properties.
Mumford also arrived at the meeting with a singular certainty that without those sites, the project isn’t worth doing.
“We don’t have five different concepts,” Mumford told the committee and a standing-room crowd at borough hall, in a veiled reference to one of his competitors. “We’ve got one, because we really like it.”
An image from the Mill Creek Residential proposal. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s parking woes can be addressed by a garage disguised to look like a row of townhouses that were erected over the course of many years, representatives of Dallas-based Mill Creek Residential told the borough parking committee Wednesday night.
An image from the Dobco pitch included off-site improvements along English Plaza, opposite the White Street project site. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
David DeConde, a business development manager Dobco Inc., drew gasps Wednesday night when he said his company was proposing 110 parking spaces on Red Bank’s White Street redevelopment zone.
Oops: he meant 1,010 spots, DeConde quickly corrected, chuckling along with the audience at his flub. “It’s been a long day,” he said of his misstatement.
In fact, his company’s plan calls for the greatest gross number of new parking spaces among five proposals submitted by would-be redevelopers of the site, which now has slots for 273 vehicles.
Jonathan Schwartz, right, and Jack Tycher of BNE Canoe with a rendering of their proposed White Street project. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Among the contenders for the right to develop Red Bank’s White Street parking lot site, BNE Real Estate Group and Canoe Brook Development can do it all in-house, a principal in the Livingston-based partnership said Wednesday night.
Their proposal calls for a seven-story, 704-vehicle garage that would be built “as fast as possible” enroute to a project that includes 204 rental apartments and no retail space, principal Jack Tycher told the borough parking committee.
Architect John Nastasi describes the proposed Bijou project Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Bijou Properties founder Larry Bijou touted his firm’s track record in building environmentally friendly projects in Hoboken when he addressed Red Bank’s parking committee Wednesday night.
And officials in Hoboken, “they don’t want to be Jersey City,” he said, an apparent response to criticism by Red Bank Democrats that their Republican colleagues were pushing a “Jersey City-style high rise vision” for the heart of the borough.
Many in the overflow crowd voiced concerns about health safety and the tower’s impact on property values. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Hundreds of Little Silver residents packed a school auditorium Monday night to give elected officials an earful about their decision to allow a 95-foot-tall cell tower to be built just 500 feet away.
Few appeared placated by either an account of how the tower came to be or the assurances of a telecom engineer that it’s safe.
Advocates for a White Street garage have brought proposals farther than any in a dozen years, but still face big tests. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It starts to get real this week, when more than a decade’s worth of talk about Red Bank parking moves into a new stage.
Proposals by five would-be developers of a public garage, and possibly much more, on the site of the borough-owned White Street parking lot are scheduled to get their first public airing Wednesday night.
“Upscale” 26 West on the Navesink opened Monday night in a building previously occupied by a string of nightclubs and Mexican restaurants. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank got a new, upscale seafood restaurant Monday, even as its owners were a few blocks away, at borough hall, getting approval for an expansion.
But not the approval they originally sought.
The 273-space White Street was at capacity at midday Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council’s Democrats goaded two of their Republican counterparts Thursday to take sides on pending development proposals for the White Street parking lot.
GOP council members Linda Schwabenbauer and Mark Taylor “are the only two members of the governing body who have not provided the public with their position on the matter in the eight weeks since” five proposals for the site were received, Democrats Ed Zipprich, Kathy Horgan and Erik Yngstrom said in a statement.
“We do not answer to Ed Zipprich,” Schwabenbauer said in response.
A new retail space in Red Bank that’s to become home to the Shrewsbury Avenue Pharmacy has been approved for occupancy, borough Assistant Construction Official John Drucker told redbankgreen Thursday. Read More
John Bowers’ plan calls for the borough to build a garage without housing or stores on the White Street lot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
As Red Bank officials, taxpayers and merchants sort through last week’s data dump of ambitious development proposals for the White Street parking lot, John Bowers may hold the wild card.
That’s because the downtown landlord’s proposal is the simplest, cheapest and quickest — and with the sudden shift by three council Democrats, it may also be the most politically palatable. But will it get equal time?
The paper comes off the windows Saturday at Cos Bar, a cosmetics store opening next door to Tiffany & Co. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two new Red Bank businesses kick off their residencies, and the summer of 2017, with openings planned for the Memorial Day weekend, redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has learned.
In addition, a longtime veteran of the town’s restaurant and bar scene is unveiling a new outdoor expansion.