The vacant Moca Motion Cafe in the train station won’t be filled until sometime this spring. A new five-year lease is signed and being reviewed by the state Department of Community Affairs, according to a spokesman for NJ Transit. The review isn’t expected to be completed for another two to three months, which would mean April or May.
The 1,950-square-foot property is one of the larger retail spaces at NJ Transit stations. The lease starts at $2,450 per month. The previous tenant, which vacated the property after the five-year le
ase expired last year, paid $2,205 a month.
The spokesman described the incoming tenant as a similar service, a convenience store/coffee shop-type place, and was the only proposal received after NJ Transit put out a Request for Proposals (RFP).
There are an average of more than 3,000 weekday boardings at the Rahway Train Station, according to NJ Transit.
That would a great spot for a liquor store since the one on Cherry st. closed.
That’s a great location with all the foot-traffic. My wife and I were big fans of the old MocoMotion and we were sad to see it leave. Glad to here there will be a new tenant!
So we’re going to go from no options, to possibly two opening around the same time? I thought I saw in an earlier thread that Starbucks was potentially taking one of the spots in Skyview.
MocoMotion was really a lousy excuse for a coffee shop, and I don’t miss it one bit. I’m disappointed that NJ Transit built such a nice station and then leased it out to a spartan establishment that only seemed open during the morning rush and served sub-par coffee and pre-made pastries. Hopefully, the new tenant will offer more varied and substantial fare than MocoMotion.
Anonymous (the third one down),You’re right, it’s possible that two could open at the same time, but not likely I would think. With the state being involved, always have to figure ‘who knows when’ they’ll give approval. If they give the OK by April, I’d think the new shop would also need some time (another month) to get settled. As for SkyView, yes, they’re planning one of the retail tenants to be a coffeehouse type of a place. But again, who knows, construction could slow something down. They’re aiming to get residents in during May with a June opening for the hotel, but I’ve heard from someone who bought they’d expect more like summer.
The reason that it is difficult for anyone to do anything in that space other than prepackaged food is that you can not vent a stove or oven do to the configuration. When it was built there was no provision made. That is why it has been vacant so long.
I think it’s pathetic that a coffee shop can’t survive in one of the largest train stations in the NJ Transit system. In theory, businesses should be lining up for that kind of location and for NJT to only get one response to their RFP is a very, very sad reflection how businesses see Rahway’s potential.I am saying this having no clue of the kind of restrictions are put on the businesses run in this location, but seems to me that a large train station should have a decent coffee shop.