A large industrial property in the city’s southwest corner qualifies for redevelopment under state law.

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The Planning Board unanimously (7-0) approved a resolution to recommend to the City Council that 329 New Brunswick Ave. be declared an area in need of redevelopment. The resolution is for non-condemnation redevelopment since it’s a single property owner and redevelopment would be up to the individual property owner. City Council designated the property (AR-219-23) at its Oct. 10 regular meeting.

During the Sept. 26 Planning Board meeting, City Planner Leigh Fleming presented the redevelopment study examining 329 New Brunswick Ave. (Block 276, Lot 10). The 99-page report can be found in its entirety here.

The Study Area is 25.6 acres and is located in the I-H Heavy Industrial Zone in the southwestern part of the city, near the border with Woodbridge. The property currently has a 200,000-square-foot building with 12 tenant spaces.

The property previously was occupied by API Foils for its manufacturing and headquarters. After API Foils left, Fleming said the building transitioned to warehouse space for logistics. Over the years, the building has seen significant additions, she added, but the industrial warehouse building is now in poor, substandard condition.

A June site visited yielded pictures of a roof that contains numerous penetrations from old ventilation systems that have been removed with holes patched but that decreases its stability, Fleming said. Those conditions satisfy:

• Criterion A — “The generality of buildings are substandard, unsafe, unsanitary dilapidated or obsolescent, or possess any of such characteristics or so lacking in light, air or space, as to be conducive to unwholesome living or working conditions”)
• Criterion D — “Areas with buildings or improvements which, by reason of dilapidation, obsolescence, overcrowding, faulty arrangement or design, lack of ventilation, light and sanitary facilities, excessive land coverage, deleterious land use or obsolete layout, or any combination, are detrimental to the safety, health, morals or welfare of the community.”

The front loading docks can’t be decommissioned because not all the tenant spaces are able to access the rear back docks, Fleming said, so that layout causes issues of front loading docks having to continue to exist. It’s just one example of the building’s obsolescence as a warehousing facility.

The property also includes “a number of environmental encumbrances,” Fleming said. The south branch of the Rahway River runs through it and there are wetlands and flood hazard areas. There’s no stormwater system that’s appropriately addressing water quality and water runoff in general, she said.

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