The amended plans call for a three-story building with two floors of office space above ground-level retail stores, as well as another four-story building comprised of 28 residential units above street-level shops.
The buildings would front Route 33 between Lake Drive and a yet-to-be-built extension of Park Street that will connect to Route 33 near Mack Dinette.
”This is, for lack of a better term, pretty much the last phase of the north side of Town Center,” Tom Troy, Sharbell’s senior vice president, told the Planning Board during a two-hour hearing on the application June 23.
Sharbell’s attorney, Tom Letizia, of Pepper Hamilton LLC, said the original approvals for the seven mixed-use buildings that comprise the commercial core of Town Center allowed the developer to build a total 95,000 square feet of commercial space with 172 loft condominiums/apartments. Twenty-six of the 172 residential units had to be set aside as affordable housing.
The amended site plan for the two Town Center buildings does not affect the total number of market-rate or affordable-housing units in the project, but “reflects a small 6,900 square-foot increase in commercial (space), which is permitted under the zone,” Mr. Letizia said.
To date, 125 market-rate condos and 19 affordable housing apartments have been built in Town Center above 55,000 square feet of ground-floor retail shops. The final construction phase will add 21 market-rate condos and seven affordable housing units, bringing the total residential component in the commercial core to 172.
The four-story mixed-use residential and retail building, referred to as Building F, will have 15,820 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Building G, the three-story retail/office building located closest to Lake Drive near the Roma Bank headquarters, will have 10,024 square feet of first-floor retail and 20,568 square feet of office space above.
Mr. Troy said the residential/retail building, could break ground later this year, while the retail/office building could start construction in 2012, depending on market conditions.
The Park Street extension to Route 33, a 36-foot wide avenue with curbside parking spaces should also be completed in early 2012, he said.
The Planning Board unanimously approved the amended site plan and granted a variance allowing Building F to have an 18-foot setback from Park Street, instead of the 5-foot maximum setback set by ordinance. The board agreed with the developer that a deeper setback would provide a safer sight-triangle for drivers.
The two new buildings would have a total 161 parking spaces in a rear lot, with 28 of those spaces restricted for residents’ use only, according to traffic engineer Mark Zelina, of Maser Consulting.
There would also be 20 spaces of street parking on Park Street, four spaces on Lake Drive and 12 spaces on Route 33, Mr. Zelina said.
Planning Board members’ expressed concern about whether there was adequate parking for residents, office workers, commercial tenants and their customers in the shared parking lot – an issue in existing mixed-use parking areas in Town Center. Mr. Troy responded that Sharbell had “learned from experience.”
Adequate parking for retail customers in shared lots will be provided by enforcing a strict parking policy that calls for towing the cars of residents who park their vehicles in the spaces meant for shoppers, instead of the gated area farther away from the building that is designated for residents.
”The best way to deal with parking, and we’ve started to learn from experience here, is that you have to really demand that residents use the parking spaces they both own and have been relegated to,” Mr. Troy said.
Most residents follow the rules and park in the gated areas when the weather is nice, but when it is cold or raining, many condo owners park their cars in the first space they find near the buildings, Mr. Troy said. This creates a “bit of parking pinch” for the stores because shoppers have no place to park, Mr. Troy said.
”We are now ... implementing a towing policy in the first two lots out there to force people to follow the rules that they agreed to when they bought their units,” Mr. Troy said, referring to the existing shared parking lots near Commerce Square.
”It’s being handled by the homeowners association,” Mr. Troy said. “The management company, at our direction, has engaged the services of a towing company and we’ve notified all the residents that the program will be in effect.”
There will be no problem identifying which cars belonging to condo owners, because they have previously provided their vehicle descriptions and license plate numbers to the management company in order to obtain parking permits, he said.
To date, 125 market-rate condos and 19 affordable housing apartments have been built in Town Center above 55,000 square feet of ground-floor retail shops. The final construction phase will add 21 market-rate condos and seven affordable housing units, bringing the total residential component in the commercial core to 172.
The four-story mixed-use residential and retail building, referred to as Building F, will have 15,820 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. Building G, the three-story retail/office building located closest to Lake Drive near the Roma Bank headquarters, will have 10,024 square feet of first-floor retail and 20,568 square feet of office space above.
Mr. Troy said the residential/retail building, could break ground later this year, while the retail/office building could start construction in 2012, depending on market conditions.
The Park Street extension to Route 33, a 36-foot wide avenue with curbside parking spaces should also be completed in early 2012, he said.
The Planning Board unanimously approved the amended site plan and granted a variance allowing Building F to have an 18-foot setback from Park Street, instead of the 5-foot maximum setback set by ordinance. The board agreed with the developer that a deeper setback would provide a safer sight-triangle for drivers.
The two new buildings would have a total 161 parking spaces in a rear lot, with 28 of those spaces restricted for residents’ use only, according to traffic engineer Mark Zelina, of Maser Consulting.
There would also be 20 spaces of street parking on Park Street, four spaces on Lake Drive and 12 spaces on Route 33, Mr. Zelina said.
Planning Board members’ expressed concern about whether there was adequate parking for residents, office workers, commercial tenants and their customers in the shared parking lot – an issue in existing mixed-use parking areas in Town Center. Mr. Troy responded that Sharbell had “learned from experience.”
Adequate parking for retail customers in shared lots will be provided by enforcing a strict parking policy that calls for towing the cars of residents who park their vehicles in the spaces meant for shoppers, instead of the gated area farther away from the building that is designated for residents.
”The best way to deal with parking, and we’ve started to learn from experience here, is that you have to really demand that residents use the parking spaces they both own and have been relegated to,” Mr. Troy said.
Most residents follow the rules and park in the gated areas when the weather is nice, but when it is cold or raining, many condo owners park their cars in the first space they find near the buildings, Mr. Troy said. This creates a “bit of parking pinch” for the stores because shoppers have no place to park, Mr. Troy said.
”We are now ... implementing a towing policy in the first two lots out there to force people to follow the rules that they agreed to when they bought their units,” Mr. Troy said, referring to the existing shared parking lots near Commerce Square.
”It’s being handled by the homeowners association,” Mr. Troy said. “The management company, at our direction, has engaged the services of a towing company and we’ve notified all the residents that the program will be in effect.”
There will be no problem identifying which cars belonging to condo owners, because they have previously provided their vehicle descriptions and license plate numbers to the management company in order to obtain parking permits, he said.
”We think it will be fairly easily administered,” Mr. Troy said. “I’m not sure it will be fairly well received by the people who have their cars towed, but frankly my hope is that we only have to tow two or three before the message gets out that they have to start playing by the rules,” Mr. Troy said.
Planning Board member Jim Guididas asked how these parking rules would be enforced once Sharbell completes Town Center.
Planning Board member Jim Guididas asked how these parking rules would be enforced once Sharbell completes Town Center.
”You’re involved with the homeowners association in putting this into effect,” Mr. Guididas said to Mr. Troy. “What happens in a couple of years when you are no longer involved?”
Mr. Troy said that because of the way Sharbell structured the homeowners association, the developer would always be the majority entity because it owns all the retail and office space in Town Center as well as all the affordable housing units.
”We’ve got a pretty strong hand ... it’s not our first trip to the rodeo,” Mr. Troy said.
Planning Board member Janet Van Nest observed that most couples probably have more than one car and that it would make more sense to do away with the gated parking area providing one-space per condo owner and open all spaces to everyone. That way, if condo owners parked close to the buildings, the spaces behind gates wouldn’t sit empty while shoppers have no place to park, she said.
The problem with that idea, Mr. Troy said, is that the residential units in buildings A, B, C, D, and E, have already been sold with a sheltered parking space as part of the purchase price.
”Those units when they buy their unit buy their parking space,” Mr. Troy said. “So now I’d have to turn around and un-buy it from them and I’m not sure that they’d want to part with it anyway.”
Mr. Troy said he was confident parking issues in Town Center could be solved with proper enforcement of existing rules.
Source: http://centraljersey.com/articles/2011/07/26/the_messenger_press/news/doc4e0b77d1a8312464651181.txt
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