Hazim Yassin at his first meeting as a council member in January, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
UPDATE: September 9, 2021: See Yassin’s response to this article below.
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Councilman Hazim Yassin hasn’t paid the rent on his apartment in 18 months and owes more than $29,000, his landlord alleges in a lawsuit.
The former Sunoco station on River Road, as seen from Cedar Avenue this week. The site is being used to store materials for an unrelated New Jersey American Water project. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
An ambitious plan to consolidate Fair Haven’s police station and borough hall into a new municipal complex appears to have run into a complication.
The former gas station the town has targeted for the proposed municipal complex has a new owner, who apparently wants to build two dozen townhomes on it.
Fair Haven’s new borough hall could look like this, its architect said. The view is from the firehouse on the opposite side of River Road. (Rendering by Eli Goldstein. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven officials rolled out a set of concept drawings Thursday night for a pair of new borough buildings at the heart of an ambitious consolidation plan.
They also unveiled a timetable for the proposal, which calls for a domino chain of real estate acquisition, construction and the sale of property to help fund it all.
Officials are negotiating a deal to buy the former Sunoco station site at 626 River Road, marked with the star above. (Image by Google. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven residents are slated to get their first look Thursday night at a plan for a possible new borough hall and police station.
Here’s what to expect.
Part of the plan calls for a new park-maintenance shed at Fair Haven Fields, just south of the Methodist church. (Image by Google. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven residents peppered the borough council Tuesday night with questions about an ambitious plan to build a new town hall, consolidate operations and sell real estate.
The questions appeared to reflect a sense that residents were caught off guard by the scope of the project, which was first reported by redbankgreen Monday.
Fair Haven officials hope to acquire the former Sunoco station for redevelopment as part of long-range consolidation of municipal operations. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A vacant gas station site in Fair Haven could become the home to a new borough hall and police station under a plan up for consideration Tuesday night.
Threads Too plans to take over space now occupied by the China Closet, which is relocating to larger space in town. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
There’s some interesting domino-effect shuffling about to take place among shops in Fair Haven, redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has learned.
Three renderings of the proposed monument sign that proved a sticking point for planning board members. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A makeover of Fair Haven’s dowdy Acme shopping center won borough planning board approval Tuesday night, but minus a proposed slab of signage that dominated a three-hour meeting.
Forman Street resident Bonnie Moore photographs an exhibit used in the hearing. Below, an illustration showing proposed changes to building 1, on the western end of the site. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Overdue for a new look, the 1950s-vintage Fair Haven strip mall anchored by an Acme supermarket is also badly in need of a new parking scheme, its owner told the borough planning board Thursday night.
It would get both by the end of October if the board approves an extensive makeover plan in coming weeks, Dan Hughes, a principal in the company that bought it for for $5.8 million two years ago, told the board.
Plans call for the creation of a pedestrian passageway linking the north and south parking lots through the former Laird’s Stationery space next door to the existing Post Office. The “salon & spa” sign is for illustration purposes only. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The owner of the Fair Haven strip mall anchored by an Acme supermarket plans extensive renovations to the site, according to documents filed with the borough last week.
The plans include dividing the former Laird’s Stationery space in two to create a pedestrian breezeway linking the front and rear parking lots. But they leave unanswered questions about whether other longtime tenants might be forced out, as the owners of Laird’s contend they were.
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.”
Bike Haven will close by the end of September, its owner says. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A second longtime retailer is leaving the Fair Haven Shopping Center.
But unlike Laird’s Stationery, which is temporarily relocating to smaller quarters in the center after getting squeezed out of its home by a steep rent increase, Bike Haven is simply calling it quits, owner Cliff Wittenberg tells redbankgreen. And a rent hike is only the final nail in the tire.
Marking the end of an era, Fantastic Signs owner John Oakley and his 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte, removed the cursive sign atop Laird’s Stationery in Fair Haven Tuesday afternoon.
As previously reported, the store, which traces its lineage back more than half a century, will close by the end of September, after a new landlord declined to renew the lease.
Bob and Rose Budnick outside their store with longtime customer Katherine Brounley. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Tucked into the corner of a Fair Haven strip mall, marked with minimal signage, Laird’s Stationery is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. But locals know it, and know it as a jam-packed emporium of not only paper goods and office supplies, but everything from backpacks to wiffle bats.
“The register never stops ringing,” owner Bob Budnick said early this week, as three customers converged at the front desk to pay for their purchases. “This store is woven into the fabric of a lot of people’s lives.”
But the register is about to stop ringing, here at least, and the business may be doomed, said Budnick and his wife.
Looking to buy or rent a home in Red Bank? Borough life gets the spotlight in a New York Times real estate feature published online Wednesday. Three married couples who bought homes in recent years talk about the draw of the town, and the story offers an overview of what’s available, with prices ($1,500 to $3,400 a month to rent, and a recent average sale price of $337,165). (Click to enlarge)
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.)
An architectural rendering of the bank, proposed for the former site of a Sunoco station. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Like a customer at a balky ATM, a regional bank will have to try again after Fair Haven’s planning board raised numerous objections to a proposed bank branch Tuesday night.
Though the matter didn’t go to a vote, all but one board member cited misgivings about Investors Savings Bank’s plan for a branch on the site of a former River Road filling station.
After a four-year vacancy, the former site of a Sunoco station at River Road and Cedar Avenue in Fair Haven may be getting a new use: Investors Savings Bank hopes to build a branch with a drive-thru there. Read More
Black netting, right, that hid the Station Place apartments under construction on Monmouth Street in Red Bank for several months came down this week.
Which is not to say the 57-unit project is finished. Developer Roger Mumford tells redbankgreen that leases will be accepted beginning in late November, but the model units won’t be ready until January. The Station Place website quotes monthly rents “from the mid-$2,000s.” (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Two fire trucks have been relocated out of town and another sits beneath a tent since the firehouse, in the background, was condemned. Former Mayor Jo-Ann Kalaka-Adams, below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Last we heard from former Sea Bright Mayor Jo-Ann Kalaka Adams, she had just failed to relcaim her old job after an election race that turned in part on property taxes she owed the town.
Fast-forward to now. Kalaka-Adams may start collecting $4,500 a month in rent from the borough for a vacant lot, even though she owes the town $40,000 in overdue property taxes, according to the Asbury Park Press.
The Princeton-based jeweler has had its store at 19 Broad Street since 2003. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Hamilton Jewelers is closing its Red Bank store, the company told select customers in a letter last week.
One of a handful of retailers that add high-end sparkle to Broad Street, Hamilton is moving out of 19 Broad Street after failing to come to terms on a new lease, the company said in the letter, signed by President Hank Siegel and Chairman Martin Siegel.
A first responder benefitting spring edition of Street Fair returns to Red Bank Sunday while, below, the one and only GROUCHO goes wild, in the person of Frank Ferrante, Friday night at the Basie.
RED BANK: “We all want to be Groucho,” Frank Ferrante told us a few seasons back, “to be that wild, irreverent pulverizer of those in power.”
In the acclaimed stage show An Evening with Groucho, the actor-director gets to be all that and more, as his spot-on channeling of the classic comic force of nature Groucho Marx comes to the Count Basie Theatre for the first time. Performed with piano accompaniment, minimal set and trademark makeup, the 90-minute, all-ages friendly tour de farce mixes canonical Marxist quotes, anecdotes from a life in show business, signature silly songs (“Hooray for Captain Spalding,” “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady”), and — in a bracingly contemporary touch — an interactive element that finds Ferrante/Groucho duckwalking the theater aisles. “Fully one-third of it is improvised,” says Ferrante. “That’s what Groucho’s magic was, really – the ability to create comedy on the spot.” Get your tickets ($19 – $49) right here — and when you take it ’round the corner for more Weekender wonderment, tell ’em Groucho sent you.
Backward Glances’ owner cited rising rents and diminishing cool as factors in her decision to leave Red Bank. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After 28 years in Red Bank, vintage clothing and accessories boutique Backward Glances has departed for Asbury Park.
Also in this edition of redbankgreen Retail Churn: an Asian restaurant hopes to open in English Plaza, just a few doors away from a new hair salon that’s readying for its debut.
Grandville Towers neighbors look on as resident Mary Cook, below, questions PRC vice president Tom Arnone, left. (Photo by Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)
By SARAH KLEPNER
The Red Bank Rent Leveling Board wrapped up testimony and public comment on a plan for upgrades and higher rents at Grandville Towers Thursday night, but held off on making a decision before next month.
Building manager PRC Group is seeking permission to impose rent surcharges to recover the costs of a proposed $3.6 million rehabilitation-and-upgrade project that has tenants fearing sharp increases.
Tenants Sonia Walker, left, and Jennifer Lugo-Walker study the project plans for the 10-story apartment building, below. (Photo above by Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)
By SARAH KLEPNER
About 30 residents of Red Bank’s Grandville Towers highrise turned out for a special meeting of the borough Rent Leveling Board Wednesday, anxious about renovation plans and their effect on rents.