By linda denicola
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — The Zoning Board of Adjustment has approved an application filed by the owners of the Ocean Plaza shopping center that will improve the existing strip mall and add a 50,000-square-foot Acme supermarket.
The shopping center at the corner of Route 9 north and Elton-Adelphia Road (Route 524) is to be renamed Adelphia Plaza by the applicant, Adelphia Shopping Center Inc., part of the Stavola Realty Company, Tinton Falls.
The project will not only expand the size of the shopping plaza from 64,667 square feet to 88,495 square feet, it will greatly improve the look of the established retail center, according to the applicant’s representatives.
Gary Vialonga, vice president of Stavola Realty, said it’s a win-win situation for people who shop at the 11 stores in the shopping center.
"It’s pretty exciting. The shopping center will appear brand new," he said.
Vialonga said the project will probably start by the end of the year and take about one year to complete.
"All of the facades will be upgraded with new store fronts and canopies. In addition, there will be new sidewalks, new pylon signs, a reconfigured parking lot and new landscape islands. There will also be new and improved lighting in the parking lot," he said.
Vialonga said all of the stores in the retail center will remain open during renovations.
The existing 16,000-square-foot Drug Fair, located at the end of shopping center that will be torn down, will remain in the same location. It will be reconfigured in order to fit the new Acme supermarket that is to become the anchor store.
The Game Room Store is moving into another location on Route 9 and The Floor Story is being relocated into a vacant store in the shopping center. A two-lane drive-up window will be added to the Investors Savings Bank and the freestanding Burger King restaurant will remain the same.
Guy Leighton, the township’s assistant planner, said the zoning board’s approval was unanimous with the condition that a problem with dry cleaning fluid, from a dry cleaning store, be cleaned up.
The applicant needed to obtain a "D" variance, which is usually called a use variance, in order to slightly exceed the floor area ratio of the zone, he explained.