With his son, Aydin, looking on, Jorge Torres embraces his wife, Lauren, after being sworn in as a police sergeant. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A former chef became the newest sergeant on the Red Bank police force Wednesday night.
The promotion of Jorge Torres was one of several ceremonies that led the borough council’s semimonthly meeting Wednesday night.
Councilman Erik Yngstrom now heads the all-Democrat parking committee. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After a post-election lull, Red Bank Democrats plan to bring in a parking consultant to offer guidance on how to fix parking issues downtown, Councilman Erik Yngstrom said Wednesday.
Stanley Sickels at a planning board meeting in 2013. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s most powerful unelected official is slated to get an official sendoff at the semimonthly council meeting Wednesday night.
Also on the agenda: the town’s heaviest water users would be subject to higher minimum charges under a measure slated for introduction.
A builder may be chosen to redevelop the White Street lot this month, and a parking study could soon follow. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Amid recriminations and calls for a fresh start, Democrats began taking the wheel in the drive for a possible new parking structure in downtown Red Bank last week.
Following through on recent action by the borough council, a crew from Red Bank’s public utilities department created two new parking spots Wednesday on White Street in what was previously a loading zone in front of Sweetest Sin lingerie and other stores along the bottleneck into Broad Street.
Then, just minutes later…
Roger Mumford unveiled a new version of his development plan, one that calls for a park along Maple Avenue between White and Monmouth streets, seen at right in the rendering above. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The two finalists vying for the right to redevelop Red Bank’s White Street parking lot both raised concerns about their ability to meet a non-negotiable condition set by downtown merchants: that a new garage add no fewer than 500 public parking spaces to the 273-already there.
Moreover, one of the builders insisted that a definitive study to determine the actual parking deficit downtown is needed, a claim that some business owners have dismissed as an unnecessary speed bump en route to what they contend is a decades-overdue parking solution.
An effort to redevelop Red Bank’s largest downtown parking lot — and, some would say, ensure the economic viability of the downtown as a whole — moves to a new stage Wednesday night.
Or, more precisely, it moves onto two stages.
The redevelopment plan for the White Street parking lot is slated for recission next week, but will have to be redone at some point, says Councilman Mike Whelan. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Now that Red Bank’s elected officials have agreed, unofficially, to restart a drive for a downtown parking solution, what happens next?
Two government meetings on one night, for starters.
The redevelopment plan for the White Street parking lot, outlined in red above, will be rescinded in an effort to end a lawsuit and address concerns about building size, borough officials said. (Image by Google Maps. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s search for a downtown parking solution took a U-turn Wednesday night, when the borough council put in motion a plan to derail a pending lawsuit by former councilwoman Cindy Burnham that members say has impeded progress.
In what was also described as a “compromise” between Republicans and Democrats over proposed building sizes , the council agreed to scrap a contentious nine-month-old redevelopment plan for the White Street parking lot.
At the same time, it knocked out, without much explanation, three of the five developers vying to build a parking deck, and more, on the 2.3-acre site.
The council will hold a public forum on proposals for the White Street parking site later this month, says Councilman Mike Whelan. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Almost six months after they were submitted and three months after they were the subject of hasty presentations, five proposed plans for the redevelopment of Red Bank’s main downtown parking lot will finally get a public hearing, redbankgreen has learned.
Roger Mumford, seen here in 2015, has offered a new plan for the White Street parking lot site that garage backers hope will dissolve political opposition to development. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
One of the five would-be builders of a downtown parking garage has told Red Bank officials he’s willing to build a 773-space parking garage on White Street in exchange for the right to erect 100 homes next door.
Garage advocates touted the informal proposal Wednesday night in the hopes of busting through a political logjam, one they believe has been erected by the three Democrats on the six-member borough council.
The 2.3-acre White Street lot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Nearly two months after five builders presented concept plans for a parking solution on White Street, Red Bank officials have yet to schedule a promised public comment session on the proposals.
That appeared to contribute to frustration voiced during the public comment portion of the council’s semimonthly meeting Wednesday night.
RiverCenter took no position on the relative merits of five developers’ concept plans for the White Street lot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It’s 500 or nothing, says Red Bank RiverCenter.
The downtown promotion agency says in an “open letter” to elected officials that it “cannot and will not” support a plan for a parking garage on White Street that doesn’t yield a net gain of 500 parking spaces on the 2.3-acre site — and none of the five plans submitted by would-be developers currently meets that target, it claims.
Mike Whelan, the councilmember who leads the parking committee, called the organization’s statement a “flip-flop” and a “disservice” to the downtown.
Architect Mike Simpson led the business group’s forum at the Red Bank Middle School Thursday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Only 17 or so Red Bank residents turned out on a rainy night for a forum on downtown parking Thursday.
And to the chagrin of the merchant group that sponsored it, few of them seemed to agree that the need for a new parking garage, let alone massive new development to go along with it, has been proven.
One of two anticipated public forums on issues related to parking in downtown Red Bank now has a date and location.
Two public forums are in the works on the question of what to do about parking in downtown Red Bank. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Residents, merchants and visitors could get two chances to weigh in on downtown Red Bank’s parking crisis — or whether one even exists — at two public events in coming weeks.
Both events were characterized at Wednesday night’s semimonthly council meeting as next-steps responses to five plans presented by would-be developers of the borough-owned parking lot on White Street.
Councilman and party chairman Ed Zipprich, flanked by fellow Democrats Erik Yngstrom and Kathy Horgan in January. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The three Democrats on the Red Bank council — and a candidate to join them there — endorsed a downtown parking solution that calls for a new White Street garage without additional development Tuesday.
The announcement set the course for a possible head-on collision with the governing body’s three Republicans, who have championed an approach that welcomed the possibility of hundreds of new housing units as well as a parking deck.
A standing-room crowd stuck around after the hourlong council meeting for nearly two hours of parking presentations. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
At an event with no equal in recent memory, and possibly in the 109-year history of the borough, five would-be developers trotted out plans to remake a large swath of downtown Red Bank Wednesday night.
Mixing elements of beauty pageant and planning board meeting, the special session of the borough parking committee drew a standing-room crowd to hear would-be builders tout their visions for massive parking and housing projects, some with retail thrown in as well.
The event was notable also for who was not there.
Yellow Brook principal Roger Mumford with a rendering of a building on the site of Atlantic Glass at the northwest corner of White Street and Maple Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Of the five proposed plans for White Street presented to the Red Bank parking committee Wednesday night, only one had what Roger Mumford’s had: a lock on two adjoining properties.
Mumford also arrived at the meeting with a singular certainty that without those sites, the project isn’t worth doing.
“We don’t have five different concepts,” Mumford told the committee and a standing-room crowd at borough hall, in a veiled reference to one of his competitors. “We’ve got one, because we really like it.”
An image from the Mill Creek Residential proposal. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s parking woes can be addressed by a garage disguised to look like a row of townhouses that were erected over the course of many years, representatives of Dallas-based Mill Creek Residential told the borough parking committee Wednesday night.
An image from the Dobco pitch included off-site improvements along English Plaza, opposite the White Street project site. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
David DeConde, a business development manager Dobco Inc., drew gasps Wednesday night when he said his company was proposing 110 parking spaces on Red Bank’s White Street redevelopment zone.
Oops: he meant 1,010 spots, DeConde quickly corrected, chuckling along with the audience at his flub. “It’s been a long day,” he said of his misstatement.
In fact, his company’s plan calls for the greatest gross number of new parking spaces among five proposals submitted by would-be redevelopers of the site, which now has slots for 273 vehicles.
Jonathan Schwartz, right, and Jack Tycher of BNE Canoe with a rendering of their proposed White Street project. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Among the contenders for the right to develop Red Bank’s White Street parking lot site, BNE Real Estate Group and Canoe Brook Development can do it all in-house, a principal in the Livingston-based partnership said Wednesday night.
Their proposal calls for a seven-story, 704-vehicle garage that would be built “as fast as possible” enroute to a project that includes 204 rental apartments and no retail space, principal Jack Tycher told the borough parking committee.
Architect John Nastasi describes the proposed Bijou project Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Bijou Properties founder Larry Bijou touted his firm’s track record in building environmentally friendly projects in Hoboken when he addressed Red Bank’s parking committee Wednesday night.
And officials in Hoboken, “they don’t want to be Jersey City,” he said, an apparent response to criticism by Red Bank Democrats that their Republican colleagues were pushing a “Jersey City-style high rise vision” for the heart of the borough.
Advocates for a White Street garage have brought proposals farther than any in a dozen years, but still face big tests. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It starts to get real this week, when more than a decade’s worth of talk about Red Bank parking moves into a new stage.
Proposals by five would-be developers of a public garage, and possibly much more, on the site of the borough-owned White Street parking lot are scheduled to get their first public airing Wednesday night.
The 273-space White Street was at capacity at midday Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council’s Democrats goaded two of their Republican counterparts Thursday to take sides on pending development proposals for the White Street parking lot.
GOP council members Linda Schwabenbauer and Mark Taylor “are the only two members of the governing body who have not provided the public with their position on the matter in the eight weeks since” five proposals for the site were received, Democrats Ed Zipprich, Kathy Horgan and Erik Yngstrom said in a statement.
“We do not answer to Ed Zipprich,” Schwabenbauer said in response.