Tag Archives: downtown

Commercial, Downtown, restaurants, Retail

Casa Borinquen grand opening Friday

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Casa Borinquen will have a grand opening on Friday after several months of interior renovations.

Specializing in Puerto Rican fare, the restaurant will replace Taste of Portugal, which closed in 2009 after more than two years at the East Cherry Street location. At one time the space housed the popular Eat To The Beat Cafe.

Casa Borinquen is family owned and operated by Rahway residents. I met the co-owners while I was strolling downtown on Sunday and they were putting some finishing touches on the place.
The building is among several East Cherry Street properties owned by Dornoch.

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The grand opening of Chess Mates, originally scheduled for March 1, was postponed. No new grand opening date has been set, but construction has been delayed due in part to the recent inclement weather.

The chess cafe will occupy the second retail space in Park Square on Irving Street, next to Eyes On You.

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Bars, Commercial, Downtown, restaurants, Retail

Irving St. restaurant slowed by sewer fee dispute

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A dispute over sewer connection fees apparently is holding up development of an Irving Street restaurant and bar.

City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier told commissioners Wednesday night he was told by partners in the Station Bar & Grill that they could not do the project if they had to pay the city’s total calculation. The city doesn’t want to stop the project, he added, but is willing to work within the confines of the ordinance.

The calculation for the connection fee range, set by city ordinance, is based on a property’s historic data and previous occupants. The amount the developers want to pay, according to Pelissier, is about a quarter of the calculation by the city’s construction official. The developers, he added, have shared their calculation with the city and what they think they should be charged.

The Planning Board approved a minor site plan for the 6,900-square-foot project last June.

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In case you somehow haven’t yet heard about “Rahway’s snow babe,” it first appeared Saturday via CNN’s iReport, before getting picked up in Wednesday’s Star-Ledger, and then on and on.

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Commercial, Downtown, Retail

Recent retail roundup

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There have been quite a few retail tenant changes of late — and more to come next week.

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Arts District, City Council, Downtown

Arts District board to take over SID management

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The City Council will vote next month to shift management of the downtown Special Improvement District (SID) to the Rahway Arts District, a precursor to a revamped Rahway Center Partnership. The ordinance, introduced at the council’s Feb. 8 regular meeting, also would expand the SID to include the Arts District, namely the Hamilton Street arts projects.

The arts district would receive and oversee the funds collected through the SID’s special assessment. The SID, created by the city in 1993, generates about $140,000 annually from 165 commercial properties in the downtown area. Commercial property owners today pay roughly an additional 7 percent to the SID, beyond regular property taxes, according to City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier. For example, a commercial property owner paying about $10,000 annually in property taxes would pay another $700 to the SID.

SIDs were created in New Jersey in the mid-1980s as financing tools by local businesses to provide services as part of a revitalization downtown plan. Commercial property owners “organize and assess themselves in order to pay for the services that are needed.” Cities have used it for things like security, sanitation, graffiti removal, facade/streetscape improvements, marketing and special events.

The future of the Partnership itself is up in the air, with an almost certain transformation in the coming months. Among the options that will be examined, according to Pelissier, is consolidating the Partnership with the Parking Authority. The city will compare the operational costs of both entities and see what’s necessary. The Partnership, he added, could still host its major fundraisers and special events, such as Hot Rods and Harleys, The Taste and a wine tasting event.

SID money would provide funding for programming at the proposed Hamilton Street amphitheater and black box theater, and in general, could be used to “develop activities and programs to encourage the long-term success of the arts community in the Rahway Arts District,” according to the ordinance. The arts district board is made up of downtown stakeholders, including city officials, artists, restaurant owners and a developer, Pelissier said.

The ordinance will come up for a public hearing and final adoption at the March 8 City Council meeting.

*** FULL DISCLOSURE *** I was appointed last month to a three-year term as an “honorary member” of the Rahway Arts District Board of Trustees. Honorary members do not vote and do not have the same obligations as other board members; all are unpaid. I expect to attend meetings whenever possible as a means to inform the community, as my blog has always aimed to do.

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City Council

City moves to buy Beverage Shop building

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The City Council last week introduced an ordinance to purchase the vacant Beverage Shop building from the Rahway Center Partnership (RCP) after Dornoch defaulted on its agreement to acquire it. A public hearing and final approval is scheduled at the council’s regular meeting on March 8.

The Partnership bought the one-story structure at 52 E. Cherry St., (Block 318, Lot 18) in April 2001 for $130,000, and had an agreement in July 2006 to sell it to Dornoch. The property was to be part of the developer’s downtown plans and RCP, as I understand it, acquired it at the time as a way to control problem properties/tenants, with the intention of it becoming part of the larger plan. In late 2007, Dornoch presented plans to the Planning Board to knock down several East Cherry Street properties — including The Beverage Shop — and build a new four-story structure as part of what’s sometimes referred to as Dornoch II 1/2.

Dornoch, which also planned two other projects that have since stalled — The Savoy and The Westbury — has defaulted on its agreement and payments of almost $8,000 to RCP. Annual property taxes on the building are more than $6,700, according to property records, which haven’t been paid for the last two quarters, according to City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier.

The City Council also approved a contract with Prime Appraisal to appraise the property and the ordinance opens the door for negotiations. The building has been vacant for a few years and its condition is unclear, Pelissier said. The city plans to assume the agreement with Dornoch, put a lien on the property and likely list it for sale.

In addition to Dornoch defaulting on its agreement, the Partnership lost funding from Merck and NJ Transit and faces some major structural changes in its future which will be detailed in the next post.

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Apartments, Downtown

Irving St. side of Park Square 90% leased

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About 90 percent of the units at Park Square are occupied with 57 of the 63 units in the Irving Street building leased, according to rental manager Nilyne Fields.

 

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Downtown, Rahway

‘The Smoldering Hedge Fund’ and Rahway

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A fellow local blogger in Plainfield alerted me to a Fortune magazine story from several weeks ago. “The Smoldering Hedge Fund”, a three-month-long investigative story details the troubles of Greenwich, Conn.-based Plainfield Asset Management. What’s this got to do with Rahway?

P & F Management was founded in 2005 as a joint venture of Plainfield Asset Management (PAM) and Glen Fishman of Lakewood-based Fishman Real Estate Enterprises. Fishman is managing partner with Dornoch Holdings, which is owned and operated by P & F Management. Dornoch had multiple projects in the works — The Savoy (photo below), The Westbury — and bought up several other properties downtown for millions at the height of the real estate boom in 2006 with plans for redevelopment. Dornoch also has a project in Plainfield.

Plainfield Asset Management once managed $5 billion but today oversees $3.3 billion, according to Fortune, and “has faced a wave of withdrawal requests, which it contained only by invoking a contract clause and refusing to let investors withdraw money.” Of the $3.3 billion, $2.7 billion represents money from investors who weren’t permitted to leave, and won’t until 2012. As the Fortune story puts it, only $560 million managed by PAM is from people who “actually want the firm to run their money.” The fund continues to charge investors management fees.

Without getting too much further into it, PAM is “fending off suits from borrowers,” according to Fortune, and its “lending practices are now being examined by the New York City’s district attorney.” I encourage you to read the Fortune story in its entirety.

How does this all affect Dornoch’s Rahway projects? It’s unclear exactly but it can’t possibly be good. I’d ask someone at Dornoch but the number to their Hillside offices has been disconnected maybe I’ll pay them a visit. [Feb. 10 UPDATE: Since this original post, I was able to get through on the phone, if only to a maze of voicemail menus and greetings. So apparently the phone is not disconnected.]

Asked about the report in Fortune, Mayor James Kennedy said he never heard of P&F Management and doesn’t know who Fishman’s partners are, while City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier said he was aware of a Holland-based hedge fund backing Dornoch.

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Arts District, Downtown, Rahway

‘Eye candy’ planned for downtown areas

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A variety of public art will grace downtown areas as part of the plan to show that Rahway is “All About the Arts.”

In a post-State of the City interview last month and a public presentation before the Redevelopment Agency last week, Mayor James Kennedy talked about murals and sculptures scattered around the downtown loop as part of an overall plan focusing on the arts. He described the visual arts piece as a complement to performing arts initiatives such as the amphitheater and black box theater planned for Hamilton Street and gallery space in the YMCA and Elizabethtown Gas building. The “eye candy,” as the mayor describes it, is expected by mid-summer.

As examples, Kennedy noted the walkway connecting Main Street and the parking lot behind River Place as an ideal spot for a mural or a sculpture, in addition to some areas connecting Hotel Indigo to the Lewis Street parking deck. “The whole arts picture has been growing in many pieces that ultimately is coming together now,” he said.

A committee will determine about two dozen quirky spots downtown for sculptures, which then would be cataloged into a booklet for a sort of sculpture garden. The city would be responsible for the footings but artists would cover the cost of their own sculptures. “The advantage to artists is not that they’re paying for their own sculpture but the advantage is that it gives them exposure and exhibition space,” Kennedy said.

Another program will copy what was done in Ithaca, N.Y., where The Sagan Planet Walk at Sciencenter pays homage to the Rahway native and noted Cornell astronomer. A scale model of the solar system would station planets at specific locations between City Hall and the Arts Guild. The program also would incorporate the high school physics program, the mayor said, while the educational piece would include brass descriptions of the technical data about the size and composition of planets. The sculptures would be to scale so some might be as small as a tennis ball while others might be much larger.

“The neat thing is that it brings a sense of community, it’s a something-to-do kind of thing,” Kennedy said, adding that these initiatives aim to create a pleasant atmosphere but also catch the attention of passersby.

A third aspect of the visual arts piece is a window treatment program like one that was done for the Carriage City Plaza sales office. People looking into the windows can see the image or art while those on the inside can clearly see outside. Rather than have paper covering up vacant storefronts, Kennedy said the city also is trying to encourage empty stores to allow the space for use by artists until they are leased.

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