A Jersey Shore-based developer is apparently interested in acquiring the stalled Savoy project on Main Street.
Continue reading Shore-based developer interested in The Savoy
Tag Archives: Redevelopment Agency
$350k judgment on Riverwalk foreclosure
The Redevelopment Agency received a $350,000 judgment against the developers of Riverwalk.
Marketing firm to oversee arts district development
The Redevelopment Agency last week approved a one-year, $75,000 contract with Ryno Marketing Group to assist in redevelopment of the Arts District.
Continue reading Marketing firm to oversee arts district development
‘It’s time to knock it down’
City construction and health officials will determine what it will take to raze the building on the former Wheatena property at Elizabeth and West Grand avenues.
“It’s time to knock it down,” said City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier. The five-story building is structurally sound but has numerous broken windows, sustained recent storm damage, and is known to have “feet of pigeon droppings,” he said. Pelissier expects the Health Department can find grounds for demolition.
The developer, Matzel & Mumford, had asked the city not to pursue demolition previously so as not to interfere with efforts to acquire the property, Pelissier said. The trustee of the property and the developer have not been able to come to terms for acquisition but he suggested demolition might encourage the two sides to get together. Demolition could cost at least a half-million dollars, he added.
A K. Hovnanian Company, Matzel & Mumford have plans for a 130-unit condo complex at the former Wheatena and Quinn & Boden sites.
Wheatena developers working on new timeline
The city is working with developers to update a redevelopment study for the former Wheatena property and come up with a new timeline for the 130-unit project.
Redevelopment Agency Attorney Frank Regan provided a report to commissioners during their meeting earlier this month and said an amended redevelopment agreement, with a revised timeline, should be completed in 30 to 60 days.
Early this year, developers Matzel & Mumford concluded the 130-unit Carriage Park at Rahway was “economically infeasible” at this time but were still committed to it.
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The Union County Performing Arts Center recently added two shows that you might consider a little more high profile than usual: Popular ’90s band Rusted Root on May 21 and comedian Brad Garrett (the brother from Everybody Loves Raymond) on June 13. What do you think? An improvement?
Other developers presented with Savoy project
Mayor James Kennedy is working with the bank and Dornoch about a possible purchase of the Main Street property, Pelissier said during a Redevelopment Agency meeting earlier this month. While it may not look like anything is going on at the site, he added, they’re “aggressively working with developers to move forward.”
The city plans to repair the sidewalk and move the fence back along the Main Street frontage of The Savoy, according to Pelissier. Whoever ends up doing the project will reimburse the city for the sidewalk work, he added.
Homes By Maplewood apparently has an updated Web site which no longer now lists The Savoy as “Coming Soon” but no longer The Lofts as it once did on our Local Links to the right, the leased apartments at the corner of Irving and East Cherry streets. It still mentions P&F Management’s “urban division is currently developing residential communities,” in among other places, Rahway.
Redevelopment Agency considers parking options for future amphitheater
The planned amphitheater on Hamilton Street is expected to break ground this fall and be completed in about a year. When the amphitheater and adjacent black box theater opens, where will patrons of the facilities park? City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier raised the issue to the Redevelopment Agency during its monthly meeting last week, initiating a discussion among commissioners about future parking options.
Among those discussed as possibilities were:
* Constructing a 
five- to six-story parking deck near the corner of West Main Street and Elizabeth Avenue;
* Building a deck at the property currently occupied by Cambridge Courts apartments (above) on West Main Street; and,
* Razing the four homes on Hamilton Street between the Bell Building and the amphitheater site for surface parking or a future parking facility.
Pelissier estimated the third option could provide 50 to 80 surface parking spaces and the agency also could pursue a future parking facility for the site. Construction of a parking deck is expensive (~$20,000/space) and buying the homes might be less expensive but just a matter of dealing with multiple property owners, he added.
One suggestion raised last week that was quickly shot down was pursuing a lease with St. Mark’s Church across the street from the amphitheater site. Redevelopment Agency Commissioner Timothy Nash, who sits on the St. Mark’s Church finance committee, told the agency in no uncertain terms that the church property on Hamilton Street is not for sale and will not be decided for at least 18 months. St. Mark’s — not the archdiocese — owns the church property. (St. Mark’s is slated to merge with St. Mary’s Church on Central Avenue, as per directions from the Archdiocese of Newark.)
Council approves Hamilton Street arts projects
With at least one proponent invoking the mythical tale of Prometheus, more than a dozen speakers, including labor union representatives, artists and school officials, last night spoke in favor of borrowing $8.5 million for construction of the Hamilton Street arts projects. Two residents questioned the cost and benefit to city taxpayers.
The City Council last night unanimously approved an $8.5-million bond ordinance to build a 1,100-seat amphitheater (above) at the former Hamilton Laundry site and to renovate the Bell Building (below) to house a black box theater. One speaker after the next noted that the amphitheater project is part of the city’s continuing investment in the Arts District and the overall vision for the arts to drive redevelopment, remaking the city as a destination. (Here’s The Star-Ledger‘s take on last night’s meeting.)
The council last night also unanimously approved ordinances to shift management of the Special Improvement District funds to the Rahway Arts District and to negotiate the purchase of 52 E. Cher
ry St. from the Rahway Center Partnership.
Construction of the amphitheater is still on schedule to begin this fall, City Engineer James Housten told the Redevelopment Agency last week. Remediation of the soil can begin now that a case manager has been assigned by the state for the city’s Brownfields sites. Most all of the soil has been contaminated with fluids used in dry cleaning, he said, adding that it can either be trucked away or mixed with chemicals on site to remediate.