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RED BANK: MERCHANTS BLAST FEE HIKE

Red Tank Brewing owner John Arcara speaking at Wednesday’s council session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

hot topic red bank njThe Red Bank council voted Wednesday to boost the fees charged to restaurants to maintain tables in parking spaces converted to streateries.

The action followed claims by two business owners that the hike was onerous.

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RED BANK: STREATERIES ON HOLD

red bank parkletBorough workers created a streatery outside Bombay River and Tacoholics restaurants on Broad Street in July, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

hot topic red bank njAt the Red Bank council’s first in-person session in more than two years last week, a lone member failed to advance a pandemic-era fix said to be favored by two merchant organizations: street eateries.

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RED BANK: RIVERCENTER TAPS DOWNTOWN PRO

Bob Zuckerman has run business-promotion organizations in South Orange, where he’s now an elected official, and Westfield. (Photo by Matt Glass. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

A downtown-management professional with extensive experience in New York and New Jersey has been tapped to run Red Bank RiverCenter, the organization announced Thursday.

Bob Zuckerman replaces Glenn Carter, the onetime borough planning director who served as RiverCenter’s executive for less than a year prior to his retirement earlier this year.

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RED BANK: DENHOLTZ PLANS MASSIVE PROJECT

Denholtz’s plan would cover several NJ Transit parking lots, as well as company-owned sites. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

hot topicDenholtz Properties is negotiating to create a massive new development at the Red Bank train station, redbankgreen has learned.

The company’s plan is dependent on the borough designating a swath of sites around the station as redevelopment area, CEO Steve Denholtz said in an interview this week.

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RED BANK: BOARD TAPS BOWERS-CRADER

Samantha Bowers-Crader with her father, John Bowers, at the Mayor’s Ball in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank RiverCenter‘s new chairperson is filling a seat held three decades ago by her father.

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RED BANK: CARTER TO LEAD RIVERCENTER

Glenn Carter and OceanFirst Bank’s Robin Fitzmaurice at the Mayor’s Ball at the Oyster Point Hotel in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

A familiar face has been hired to run Red Bank RiverCenter, the downtown promotion organization: former borough planning director Glenn Carter.

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RED BANK: KIRKPATRICK QUITS RIVERCENTER

RED BAN RIVERCENTER LAURA KIRKPATRICK 030420Laura Kirkpatrick addressing the Red Bank council in March, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

[See UPDATE below]

By JOHN T. WARD

For the second time in just 17 months, the downtown promotion organization Red Bank RiverCenter is losing its executive director.

After just one, pandemic-filled year, Laura Kirkpatrick has resigned as operational head of the agency that manages the borough’s special improvement district, redbankgreen has learned.

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RED BANK: ANDERSON ‘EVOLUTION’ ROLLS ON

The former Anderson Storage building, above. Below, Chris Cole in the space being readied for Glen Goldbaum’s Lambs & Wolves salon.(Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

With the opening last week week of Sickles Market and Booskerdoo, Red Bank’s Anderson Storage building has all but completed a transformation in the works for almost two decades.

But for developer Chris Cole, who oversaw the project, it’s just another day at the office.

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RED BANK: MAYOR SLAMS STREET TAKEOVER

red bank 26 west boat clubAmid a boomlet in parklets to help boost Red Bank restaurants, Mayor Pasquale Menna was critical Monday of one eatery’s unauthorized takeover of a public street over the weekend.

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RED BANK: PLAZA PLANS REWORKED

princeton parklet 2018 2.jpegA public parklet on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. Red Bank officials plan to allow parklets for designated restaurant use. (Photo courtesy of Planet Princeton. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

hot topic red bank njAmong a series of adjustments, Red Bank’s economic reopening committee has scrapped the Sunday pedestrian plaza on Monmouth Street.

Instead, the Broad Street plaza, which has drawn large turnouts three nights a week since debuting June 18, will become a four-day affair with the addition of Sunday operations starting this weekend, Red Bank RiverCenter executive director Laura Kirkpatrick tells redbankgreen.

At the same time, plans are in the works for “parklets,” or temporary seating structures, to be built in parking spots outside a handful of downtown restaurants, including three that participated in the aborted Monmouth Street plaza effort.

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RED BANK: SCAVONE TO LEAVE RIVERCENTER

scavone menna red bank, nj,Jim Scavone, left, with Mayor Pasquale Menna and Visitors Center director Margaret Mass at the opening of RiverCenter’s offices on Broad Street in October, 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Jim Scavone, who led Red Bank RiverCenter for the past six years, is leaving the downtown promotion organization.

He won’t be going far, though: he’s taking a job at Hackensack Meridian Health at Riverview Medical Center, just on the edge of special improvement district he managed.

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RED BANK: BANK CHURNS OUT, STATIONERY IN

red bank mini shop 29 monmouth stVicky Li’s new Mini Shop opened Saturday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

retail churn smallA bank branch closes and two new businesses open in downtown Red Bank.

Read all about it in this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.

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LITTLE SILVER: A WINDOW ON TRADITION

The eighth-grade class at the Markham Place School in Little Silver spent the day Wednesday carrying on a school tradition: painting the windows of downtown businesses for Halloween. 

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RED BANK: SICKLES BREWS BOOSKERDOO DEAL

The Anderson Storage building, where ‘Sickles Market Provisions’ plans to occupy the ground floor. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Sickles Market, the Little Silver grocer that traces its roots back 350 years, has partnered with the fast-growing Booskerdoo coffee-shop chain on its planned foray into Red Bank, the two companies announced Tuesday.

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SEA BRIGHT: REBUILDING BONDS UPHELD

sb parking 081916 7By a 2-to-1 margin, Sea Bright voters endorsed the plan to erect two new buildings to house all public operations on the fringes of the municipal beach. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

HOT-TOPIC_03Sea Bright voters gave landslide approval Tuesday to a plan to rebuild every public structure wiped out by Sandy.

In a special election on a trio of bonding actions taken by the borough council in June, voters by a 2-1 margin backed the plan, which would put two sizable new structures with a combined price tag of $12.73 million at the edge of the municipal beach.

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SEA BRIGHT: PIVOTAL VOTE ON FACILITIES

BOROUGH of SEA BRIGHT Library + Beach PavilionHOT-TOPIC_03Sea Bright voters go to the polls Tuesday for a special election on a series of bonding actions taken by the borough council in June.

At issue: whether to take on $5.3 million in debt to replace  every public structure wiped out by Hurricane Sandy.

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RED BANK: SCAFFOLDS RISE DOWNTOWN

rb-scaffold-091216-1rb-scaffold-091216-2Netted scaffolding went up above the sidewalk outside the building that houses Restoration Hardware at 54 Broad Street in Red Bank over the weekend, and began going up outside the five-story office building at 12 Broad Street on Monday.

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SEA BRIGHT: POST-SANDY REBUILD DEBATED

sb boro hall 082316Crammed in beside desks in a gym repurposed as offices since Hurricane Sandy, dozens of residents attended the meeting. Below, the proposed police, fire and first aid building would include borough offices on the second floor. (Photo by John T. Ward. Rendering by Settembrino Architects. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

BOROUGH of SEA BRIGHT Municipal EMS BuildingWith millions of federal dollars possibly at stake, Sea Bright voters debated Tuesday whether to take on the financial burden of rebuilding all of the town’s public facilities wiped out by Hurricane Sandy.

With a pivotal referendum scheduled for September 27, dozens of residents crowded into a gym that’s been co-opted for borough offices since the 2012 storm, largely in agreement that new facilities are needed, but split on costs.

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SEA BRIGHT: TOWN HALL ON REFERENDUM

sb parking 081916 3BOROUGH of SEA BRIGHT Library + Beach PavilionSea Bright residents are scheduled to gather for a town hall meeting Tuesday night to discuss a referendum on whether to bond for new public facilities to replace those destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in October, 2012.

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RED BANK: SICKLES TO OPEN WEST SIDE STORE

anderson bldg 040616 3Sickles Market plans to lease nearly the entire first floor of the Anderson Storage building, seen here looking south on Bridge Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

HOT-TOPIC_03Sickles Market, the Little Silver farm market that traces its roots back 350 years, is planning to open a second store in Red Bank’s former Anderson storage building, redbankgreen has learned.

Store owner Bob Sickles told redbankgreen on Wednesday that his company plans to lease nearly all of the 8,000-square-foot ground floor of a building that will have three upper stories of offices.

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