TINTON FALLS — The design phase of the Route 66 ramp is expected to be completed in the next few months, with commercial and industrial development expected to get a boost from the revamping.
An agreement was made with the state in February to construct a ramp to reroute poor traffic patterns in the borough’s southern section where traffic ingress and egress patterns have posed a hindrance to development in the past.
According to Mayor Ann McNamara, the design phase of the project will be completed in the late fall, and by early spring the project’s actual construction will be bid on, with construction slated to start next summer.
"Things are going well as planned," said McNamara. "The project is something we’ve needed and wanted for a long time. It’s nice to see it moving forward."
The area has been touted as ripe for corporate and commercial development, with suitable spots for such construction on large tracts of land on either side of Route 66. However, it’s never been developed to its fullest capacity because without the ramp, it was considered prime for traffic predicaments.
The reason development has been nixed in the past was because left turns could not be made in and out of the sites. A traffic light was needed at the spot, but the DOT would not approve one because the light would have been too close to the existing Jumping Brook Road/Route 66 traffic light.
This agreement makes Tinton Falls the lead agency in a project wherein a ramp over Route 66 will be built to create a safe method to funnel traffic to either side of the portion of the highway that borders Neptune and sits east of the Garden State Parkway. The ramp and its connections will reroute traffic in the area by allowing traffic to loop down into the sites instead of being routed in and out via a signal, noted Borough Administrator Anthony Muscillo.
Officials awarded a $759,000 contract to the engineering firm Schoor and DePalma, Manalapan, in March, setting in motion step one of the long-awaited agreement with the state.
Phased state Department of Transportation funding amounting to $3.5 million over two years will now pay for the installation of that ramp. Though portions of Neptune touch on the project, the DOT has named Tinton Falls the "lead agency" in the concerted effort between the two towns and DOT because most of the property affected is in Tinton Falls. As such, Tinton Falls will be awarded $1,762,000 toward the ramp construction in fiscal year 2002 and the other half of the $3.5 million in 2003.
One of the developers standing to benefit from the overpass is Developers Diversified, which Muscillo had described in the past as a large, billion dollar real estate company that made this publicly traded purchase from PRC Development Corp. of West Long Branch. PRC had prior approval from the Planning Board going back about seven or eight years for what was to be a corporate center development, but the poor access to Route 66 prevented the completion of that deal, as Muscillo explained. Developers Diversified put its retail, commercial and office plans for the site on the table in the winter when the plans for the Route 66 ramp were announced.
Another development poised to reap the benefits of the ramp is an existing 100,000 square feet of office space, built by Hovnanian, in the site across from the slated Developers Diversified site and south of Route 66, near the parkway. The developer plans to add two, 200,000 square-foot office complexes and one extended-stay hotel, a facility designed to accommodate relocating executives or those in the area for a temporary extended stay.
—Elaine Van Develde