The planning board approved the demolition of 95 East Front Street in July, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Turning aside pleas by historic preservationists, Riverview Medical Center demolished a 19th-century Red Bank mansion Monday.
Meantime, the hospital is planning to gobble up more real estate, redbankgreen has learned: a vacant lot directly across East Front Street from the mansion.
The planning board approved the demolition of 95 East Front Street in July, 2019, but the building remains vacant and intact. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
Pent-up frustration over the apparent fate of a former Red Bank mansion erupted at the first pandemic-era meeting of the Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission Wednesday night.
Commission member Kal Pipo ripped the planning board for allowing the the demolition of a Victorian mansion two doors away from Riverview Medical Center – and said Mayor Pasquale Menna “sounded like he was the lawyer for” the hospital at that hearing where that decision was made.
The Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission plans to hold its first meeting in six months Tuesday night.
On the agenda: an update by a commission member on a pre-1868 Victorian house at 95 East Front Street slated for demolition by Hackensack Meridian Health Medical Center.
The Victorian structure, now said to have been built before 1868, is slated for demolition. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five months after Red Bank’s planning board approved the demolition of a Victorian house owned by Riverview Medical Center, the borough Historic Preservation Commission is hoping to save it.
Relying on newly assembled information showing the house at 95 East Front Street was older than previously believed — and may have belonged to descendants of a prominent industrialist — the HPC plans to ask the hospital to turn it into a “medical bed & breakfast.”
A schematic of the proposed structure with the underground vehicle storage racks visible. (Drawing by Bob Van Remoortel. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposed office building that would transform a prominent corner of Red Bank’s Washington Street Historic District won planning board approval Monday night.
The project comes with a first for the town: a valet-operated parking system that can store up to 92 cars in underground racks.
Architect Bob Van Remoortel shows the Historic Preservation Commission the revised proposal for a medical office building Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Following radical changes, a proposed office building in Red Bank’s Washington Street Historic District won endorsement from newly muscular Historic Preservation Commission Wednesday night. Read More
Architect Brian Tracy shows the Historic Preservation Commission a revised proposal for a medical office building Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A modernist office building topped by what looked like an overturned laundry basket won’t be built in Red Bank’s Washington Street Historic District as proposed, an architect said Wednesday night.
But neither, it appears, will his replacement design, which Historic Preservation Commission members still found unacceptable.
The proposed Rivermark building shown above was modified before approval. (Rendering by Michael Monroe. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s planning board gave swift approval Monday night to a proposed commercial and residential building at a key downtown corner after it was downsized.
The two buildings on the northeast corner of West Front Street and Maple Avenue would be replaced under Mark Forman’s plan. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s planning board asked the developer of proposed commercial and residential building at a key corner downtown to make it smaller Wednesday night.
The prospective buyer of a high-profile corner in Red Bank is planning to erect an office building there, but not the one shown on his website, he told redbankgreen Wednesday night.
A website posting by the prospective buyer of two Red Bank buildings listed on an inventory of historic properties hints at big changes to come. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank preservationists expressed concern in recent days over the pending sale of two downtown buildings they believe have historic significance.
Developer Roger Mumford with an architect’s rendering of the T. Thomas Fortune house as it would appear after restoration. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A decade-long effort to save an endangered artifact of African-American history cleared a major milestone Thursday night when the Red Bank zoning board approved a developer’s plan to rebuild the T. Thomas Fortune house and create 31 apartments on its one-acre property.
Borough-based homebuilder Roger Mumford, who vowed to restore and donate the house for use as a cultural center before he would seek certificates of occupancy for the apartments, was hailed as the last-chance savior of a vital relic of the civil rights movement that its current owners want to raze. Residents told the board before its vote that Mumford deserved the tradeoff of more than a dozen variances, most of them arising from the apartment plan.
“If a development project has ever given back to the community, it’s this one,” said Kalman Pipo, a member of the borough’s Historic Preservation Commission. “If this project doesn’t go through, we are going to lose this house” to the wrecking ball, he said.
The home of Paul and Nancy Cagno, at the corner of Wallace and Mount streets, above, and the circa 1903 mansion that’s now the office of Smallwood Wealth Management, at 199 Broad Street, below, were among the four structures cited. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Three Broad Street buildings and a home in the historic district won kudos from the Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission at a ceremony Tuesday night.
Kicking off what members hope to become an annual series, the commission honored property owners in four categories for “adding to the value of Red Bank by adding to the character” of the town, in the words of Chairwoman Michaela Ferrigine.
At 18 Broad Street, now concealed by scaffolding, the Art Deco foyer seen below will be replaced by one more reminiscent of the building’s 19th-century origins, the architect said. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Accelerating downtown Red Bank’s flight from retail to food, the zoning board approved the conversion of a longtime shoe store to a restaurant Thursday night.
Dominating the two-hour hearing were two issues: whether the new owner of 18 Broad Street should be permitted to have three apartments upstairs, rather than the two allowed under the zoning ordinance, and whether the Art Deco foyer should be saved or replaced.
Barely mentioned: the impact of the 76-seat restaurant on parking.
The foyer of the former If the Shoe Fits store is the last remaining example of Art Deco design downtown, say preservationists. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
[UPDATE: The zoning board meeting on the 18 Broad Street proposal was cancelled. The application was rescheduled for June 18.]
A proposal to turn a former downtown Red Bank shoe store into a restaurant and replace its distinctive curved-glass entryway is slated for review at Thursday night’s zoning board meeting.
Preservationists have raised concerns about the plan for 18 Broad Street, which is located in the historic district, because, they say, it would eliminate the last remaining example of Art Deco design in the commercial district.