RED BANK: RIVERVIEW DROPS MASK MANDATE
Reversing a policy revived a month ago, Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center has dropped a mandate for mask-wearing to impede the spread of COVID-19, according to a published report.
RED BANK: RIVERVIEW REMANDATES MASKS
Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center has revived its pandemic-era mask mandate for all staff and visitors “due to an increase in COVID-19 prevalence,” its owner announced Wednesday.
RED BANK: 139-YEAR-OLD MARINA SOLD
Riverview Medical Center looms over one of two Irwin Marine properties flanking Marine Park. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Irwin Marine, a boating business with pilings sunk deep into the red clay waterfront that gave Red Bank its name, has been sold by the family that’s owned it throughout its 139-year existence.
RED BANK: SPARKS FLY BEFORE OVERRIDE VOTE
Area NAACP president William Poku addressing Councilmembers John Jackson, Michael Ballard and Ed Zippich during the special session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Controversy over an ordinance restricting short-term residential rentals such as Airbnbs in Red Bank continued at a special hearing Friday morning on whether to override Mayor Billy Portman‘s veto of the law.
RED BANK: BALLARD SLAMS PORTMAN VETO
Councilman Michael Ballard, seen here in 2022, said the ordinance was the subject of 15 hours of “impassioned” debate. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Mayor Billy Portman “blindsided” most of the borough council when he vetoed controversial limits on short-term residential rentals, Councilmember Michael Ballard said this week.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN’S USE DEBATED
An illustration from the Master Plan section on affordable housing. (Image by BFJ Planning. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Concluding a 14-month process, the Red Bank planning board adopted the borough’s first new Master Plan in 28 years Monday night.
The unanimous vote followed spirited debate about whether the many recommendations in the 166-page document should be prioritized for council action.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN GETS WALK-THROUGH
Master Plan consultant Susan Favate addressing attendees Monday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposed new Master Plan for Red Bank drew little criticism in its public debut Monday night.
If adopted, as expected, the next challenge will be in prioritizing the many recommendations in the 166-page document, planning board members said.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN DRAFT ON AGENDA
Two long-dormant gas stations would be razed to create a roundabout at the northern gateway into Red Bank under one of many suggested changes included in a new draft Master Plan.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN ROLLOUT SET
Planning board chairman Dan Mancuso at a meeting in October. The board ‘endorsed’ the primary school garden, below. (Photos by John T. Ward and Red Bank schools. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A draft of Red Bank’s first new Master Plan in decades will be available for public review this week, planning officials said Monday night.
At its opening session of 2023, and the first ever available via Zoom, the planning board also ‘endorsed’ the learning garden at the borough’s primary school, and learned that, so far, there are no other applications pending.
RED BANK: HOSPITAL LOT GETS GREENERY
Some readers have noticed earthmoving activity at the corner of Spring and East Front streets in Red Bank lately and wondered: What’s Going On Here?
SEE CORRECTION BELOW
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN GETS MORE INPUT
Joseph Pallante writes a comment on a display as his daughter, Evalyse Pallante, looks on at a Red Bank Master Plan workshop Monday night.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN GETS MARKED UP
Gianna Maita-Edwards writes a comment on a display at the session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
About two dozen Red Bank residents grabbed Sharpies to weigh in on the borough’s Master Plan Thursday night.
They gathered at the Red Bank Middle School despite heavy rain to share their thoughts on the first wholesale rewriting of the vision plan in almost three decades.
RED BANK: MASTER PLAN INPUTS SLATED
Hackensack Meridian Health’s Riverview Medical Center and its holdings comprise one of three areas of town that will get special focus in the Master Plan. (Google Map from Monmouth County property records. Click green circles for site details.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank residents will have two opportunities to weigh in on the borough’s ongoing Master Plan update next month.
Among the topics: the future of three discrete sections of town, including the area around the sprawling Riverview Medical Center.
RED BANK: HOSPITALS TO KEEP CHILD CARE
Reversing a closure plan announced in July, Hackensack Meridian Health plans to continue providing child care services for employees at six New Jersey hospitals, including Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, according to a news report. More →
RED BANK: AC OUTAGE SHUTS RIVERVIEW ER
Riverview Medical Center’s emergency room entrance as seen in May, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See Update below.
By JOHN T. WARD
A malfunctioning air conditioning system prompted the temporary closure of the emergency room at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank Wednesday.
RED BANK: NO INJURIES IN YACHT BLAZE
Volunteer firefighters battled the blaze in close quarters on a dock and ramp. Below, onlookers at Riverview Medical Center. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
No one was injured in the dramatic waterfront blaze that destroyed and sank a yacht docked at a Navesink River marina Thursday night, Red Bank Fire Chief Nick Ferraro told redbankgreen.
RED BANK: HOSPITAL ENVELOPED IN SMOKE
A dockside boat fire blanketed Red Bank’s Riverview Medical Center in smoke Thursday evening.
RED BANK: MAN FACING WEAPONS CHARGES
A Tinton Falls man is facing weapons charges after he brought a handgun loaded with armor-piercing bullets into Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank last month, police Chief Darren McConnell told redbankgreen Wednesday.
The suspect, Wesley Rucker, age 34, was also charged with impersonating a federal law enforcement official.
RED BANK: RALLY DEMANDS VAX/MASK CHOICE
Marchers gathered on the sidewalk outside Riverview Medical Center Monday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
About 150 proponents of “choice” regarding COVID-19 vaccines and masks protested outside Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank early Monday afternoon.
The midday protest followed a rally in Riverside Gardens Park, where god, the U.S. Constitution and the Second Amendment were also invoked.
RED BANK: GRAY SKIES IN FORECAST
Flowering trees in front of Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank last week provided a spring welcome to passersby.
With Tuesday as an exception, the week-ahead’s weather is expected to include gray skies and recurring rain, according to National Weather Service. Check out the extended forecast below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: DREAMING BIG ABOUT RIVERVIEW
A video created by a Philadelphia architectural firm shows a vastly expanded Riverview Medical Center campus. (Video by BKT Architects. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Over more than a dozen years of amassing Red Bank real estate, officials at Riverview Medical Center have been silent on an obvious question: what do they plan to do with their growing land bank?
They’re still not saying. But someone went to the expense of hiring an architecture and urban planning firm to come up with blue-sky concept plans for Riverview, redbankgreen has learned. And he just made a killing selling the hospital some real estate.
RED BANK: RIVERVIEW DEAL YIELDS WINDFALL
The prices of vacant lots quadrupled in less than four years when they were sold to Riverview in late December. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The latest addition to Riverview Medical Center’s Red Bank real estate holdings yielded a windfall gain for the seller, redbankgreen has learned.
Why the hospital paid a whopping price for the site remains unanswered.
RED BANK: HOSPITAL TO OWN GARAGE
The garage, built in 1983, became the subject of a lease-purchase deal between the town and Riverview 17 years later. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
It’s a mere formality, but Riverview Medical Center is slated to become the owner of Red Bank’s only publicly-owned parking garage Friday.
At its regular meeting Wednesday night, the borough council authorized officials to sign off on a property transfer worked out when the current council president was in middle school.
The deal adds to the nonprofit hospital’s growing portfolio of real estate.
RED BANK: ATRIUM CITED FOR COVID-19 LAPSE
The Atrium at Navesink Harbor on Riverside Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
State health officials cited a Red Bank longterm care facility that has been the scene of 10 recent COVID-19 deaths for “deficiencies” in its defense against the virus in November, redbankgreen has learned.
RED BANK: VIRUS CLAIMS SIX MORE AT ATRIUM
The Atrium at Navesink Harbor, the buildings at center and right, as seen from the Navesink River in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Six more residents of an assisted-living facility in Red Bank have died of COVID-19 in recent days, data released by the New Jersey Health Department Monday indicate.