Architect Richard Arzberger’s rendering of the proposed Total Storage facility at Central Avenue and Berry Street. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank-area homes and businesses could use some more elbow room, the owner of a proposed 500-unit self-storage facility told the borough planning board Monday night.

And the project would be built in the right place, board members said in giving the plan unanimous approval.

A rendering of the Berry Street side of the building. (Click to enlarge)

The proposed Total Storage Concepts facility would include four stories, including a basement, comprising 81,000 square feet and up to 525 storage units, principal Jane Tresnan told the board.

Tresnan, whose company also owns storage facilities in West Orange and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said a study of the Red Bank market within a five-mile radius convinced her that “this area could handle another self-storage facility.”

Richard Arzberger, the applicant’s architect, argued that the building, located in an industrial zone at Central Avenue and Berry Street, would serve as a silent, clean buffer between nearby homes and nearby heavy industrial uses.

The plan needed required no variances, and no one in the audience spoke for or against it.

Neither of two restaurant proposals that had been on the board agenda were heard. A plan to convert the former Liberty Hose firehouse at 40 White Street to an eatery and proposal to convert the retail space at 132 Broad Street to a sushi restaurant called Red Lantern were both rescheduled to April 4.