RED BANK: APARTMENTS RISE FROM HOLE
After months of abandonment, a downtown Red Bank site is on its way to becoming home to 24 individuals and families.
What’s Going On Here? Read on…
After months of abandonment, a downtown Red Bank site is on its way to becoming home to 24 individuals and families.
What’s Going On Here? Read on…
Two years after borough officials shut down construction over safety issues, signs of life have been stirring around a downtown Red Bank building project.
What’s Going On Here? Read on…
The borough council is expected to choose a consultant next week to assess parking needs in downtown Red Bank. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Stalled since the November election, an effort to address parking issues in downtown Red Bank appears about to get back on track next week.
That’s when the borough council is expected to designate a parking consultant, to be paid for in part with funds from Red Bank RiverCenter.
Local officials say the usage mix and vacancy rates of upper floors downtown factors into parking needs and taxes. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
As the Red Bank council goes back to the drawing board in search of parking solutions after last year’s abandoned flirtation with five developers, local officials admit they’ve got a problem upstairs.
They don’t know how much parking to allocate for upper-floor office and residential tenants downtown. Nobody, it turns out, has been keeping tabs.
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.
Red Bank officials have ordered a work stoppage at Riverwalk Commons, a 24-unit luxury apartment building under construction at 24 Mechanic Street.
Riverwalk, seen below in a 2012 rendering, would replace the building at 24-30 Mechanic Street, above. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A plan to give tenants access to a yet-to-be built Red Bank apartment building via a borough parking lot came under fire Wednesday night, 10 years after it cleared its first hurdle.
At issue: whether the town had boxed itself in legally, getting nothing in return.
An architect’s rendering, above, shows the elevated patio of the proposed Element apartments, with parking underneath. Below, a view of the property, which includes a strip alongside the old Liberty Hose firehouse on White Street. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Questions about parking adequacy and affordable housing continued to dominate as the Red Bank zoning board resumed hearings on a 35-unit apartment building proposed for West Front Street Thursday night.
Dubbed the Element, the project would be built on an irregularly shaped, three-quarter-acre vacant lot facing Riverside Gardens Park at one end and White Street, alongside the former Liberty Hose firehouse, on the other.
After another two-month break, the Red Bank zoning board’s hearing on the Element, a proposed 35-unit apartment complex at 55 West Front Street, is scheduled to resume Thursday night. The property, opposite Riverside Gardens Park, was formerly the site of a nursing home.
The board meets at borough hall at 6:30 p.m. (Architect’s rendering. Click to enlarge)
After three hours of testimony and few questions from zoning board members, a hearing on a proposed 35-unit apartment complex fronting on West Front Street in Red Bank ended without reaching a vote Thursday night.
The hearing on the project, located opposite Riverside Gardens Park and called the Element, is scheduled to resume June 18. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A zoning board hearing on a proposed 35-unit apartment complex fronting on West Front Street opposite Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank is scheduled to resume after a two-month interval Thursday night.
Testimony on traffic flow and parking is expected, with a possible vote on the plan, called 55 West Front. The board meets at borough hall at 6:30 p.m. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A photo montage, above, showing the West Front Street elevation of the proposed building. Below, a rendering of a deck atop the garage, also visible at right in the image above. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The quest for approval of a proposed 35-unit apartment building in downtown Red Bank was slowed Thursday night by another document already in the developer’s pocket: an eight-year-old plan for 27 condos at the same site.
Members of the zoning board and neighbors of the proposed 55 West Front Street project, located opposite Riverside Gardens Park, were frequently flummoxed by how variances the developer is now seeking differed from those obtained in 2007.
“I wasn’t here when the original plan was approved, and I don’t know who on this board was,” a clearly frustrated board member Sean Murphy told the applicant’s lawyer, Peter Falvo.
At 55 West Front Street, a developer is seeking approval for 35 rental units on a vacant lot previously approved for 27 condos. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After a nearly eight-year interim, new plans for a prominent Red Bank parcel are scheduled to go before the borough zoning board Thursday night.
The proposal, for a vacant lot opposite Riverside Gardens Park on West Front Street, replaces a plan approved in 2007 for 27 condos to replace a since-demolished Meridian nursing home.
Under concept plans filed by KHov, a building at Maple Avenue and West Front Street, center above, would be replaced by eight townhouses. Less than a block away, a developer is seeking approval for 35 rental units, shown below, on a vacant lot already approved for 27 condos. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
More multi-unit homebuilders have their eyes on Red Bank. West Front Street, in particular.
Two proposals that would add 43 new residences to the stretch of West Front between Maple Avenue and English Plaza have been filed with the borough planning board.
A rendering of the planned Riverwalk project, which is to replace the building at 24-30 Mechanic Street, below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After six years of dormancy, a 24-unit residential building planned for Mechanic Street in Red Bank is about to go into the ground, says its developer.
Only, not as far into the ground as initially expected.
Builder Tony Busch Sr. won unanimous borough zoning board approval last week to modify plans ok’d in 2006 for a four-story project dubbed Riverwalk. The changes include eliminating of all retail space at the ground level and replacing it with at-grade parking beneath three stories of residences. The original plan called for subterranean parking garage.
The project could begin going into the ground as early as next spring, except that “there’s no hole to dig,” Busch told redbankgreen.
Two borough-owned lots are headed for the the auction block. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two residential building lots created by the November demolition of Rumson’s former police station are expected to yield at least $800,000 for the town.
The borough council agreed Tuesday night to auction the adjoining Center Street lots separately, each with a minimum bid of $400,000, Administrator Tom Rogers tells redbankgreen.