The plastic sheathing that had covered a scaffold on the east side of 2 Broad Street in Red Bank for months came down this week, exposing the structure’s original red brick for the first time in decades. The building, built around 1875, is to house an Urban Outfitters store slated to open later this year.
Our photo was taken from the semi-enclosed balcony at 7 Broad. (Click to enlarge)
Pizza Fusion plans to take over the vacant space at left and the storefront now being vacated by Sole Solution, right.
Displaced from his longtime storefront, Alan Fisher plans to take over the space now occupied by Papyrus in the red brick structure visible over his left shoulder.
Alan Fisher got his walking papers in late January.
After 25 years operating A.H. Fisher Diamonds at 10 Broad Street, Fisher was notified with just five days remaining on his lease that it wouldn’t be renewed.
Turns out his landlord, Keith Alliotts of Broad Street Realty Associates, has a client on the line who not only wants the storefront at 2 Broad, at the corner of Broad and West Front streets, but the entire 10,000-square-foot structure that stretches several addresses south on Broad.
Alliotts’ client is widely rumored to be Urban Outfitters, though neither the clothing retailer nor Alliotts responded to redbankgreen messages seeking comment.
Fisher says he knows nothing more than the rest of us about who the tenant will be. But the fact that his landlord told him the mystery tenant wants not just 2 and 8 Broad, but Fisher’s space and the private breezeway it abuts will only heighten interest in the prospective deal.
But that’s a story for another day. Today, our topic is Fisher’s decision, in spite of all the mutterings about Red Bank’s purported slide back to the days of ‘Dead Bank,’ to stick with Broad Street.
“I grew up here in town, so yes, this is a vote of confidence in Red Bank,” says Fisher, who in high school and college had a job that required him to wind the clock atop the former borough hall and police station at 51 Monmouth Street.
Is womens casual-wear and home-décor retailer Anthropologie coming to The Grove?
A jobs posting last week on craigslist indicates the chain is hiring store managers, department managers and other anthropologistes with retail experience for a location given as Red Bank. And the chains own website lists six job openings in Red Bank.
A reliable source tells us, however, that the location for the coming store is actually The Grove at Shrewsbury. Folks at Metrovation, The Groves managing partner, say theres nothing they can discuss at this point.
For the uninitiated, Anthropologie hawks such remarkable pieces as one of a kind hand-beaded and dip-dyed vintage cashmere cardigans; sandals hand-built from the wooden heels up with vintage tie material and embroidered buttons; and the first quilt ever printed with one hundred hand-cut blocks by artisans in Jaipur, India.
Well, no wonder they call it Anthropologie. Its so much more on-the-nose than J. Peterman.