to new location on Linden Place
Eatery will move down the block
to new location on Linden Place
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
The owners of La Pastaria received approval from the Red Bank Zoning Board to move their restaurant to 30 Linden Place. This artist’s rendering shows how the building will appear once renovations are complete.
Emanuela Angelo isn’t a gambling woman, so she and her partners in a Red Bank restaurant decided to pass on a vote by the Red Bank Zoning Board they saw as a bad bet last month.
At the Zoning Board’s March 24 meeting, Angelo, her son Philip, and Frank Pasquale, partners in the upscale Italian restaurant, La Pastaria, passed on getting a decision on their application to move their business to a building about 200 feet east on Linden Place rather than risk a vote for denial of the application.
With only five voting members present (board member Chris Braun recused himself), it would have taken a unanimous yes vote to approve the application and, after conferring, the partners decided to come back to the April 3 meeting.
That proved to be a winning strategy, and the board approved the application for a "D" variance for a nonconforming mixed use, site plan approval, and "C" variances for parking, front setback, unoccupied open space, and loading and unloading to permit interior and exterior renovations and an addition to an existing building for a change of use to primary food service in the CCD-2 zone.
Currently located at 6 Linden Place at the rear of the Morgan Stanley building owned by Downtown Investors LLC., La Pastaria proposed a move to a building at 30 Linden Place owned by the Santa K. Arnone Trust.
According to La Pastaria attorney Martin A. McGann Jr., the restaurant seats 115 people at its present location, and will have seating for 82 at its new location. The decrease in seating, according to Pasquale, will be offset by a substantially lower rent.
Pasquale told the board La Pastaria has been in its present location since 1996, operating seven days per week. Midway through the current lease, he said, the partners approached landlord Downtown Investors, whose principals include Jay and Todd Herman, to renegotiate the lease. According to Pasquale, when the landlord indicated uncertainty about renewing the lease, the partners began to look for a new location.
"We are dropping the number of seats; there is less square footage and less rent. In a comparable area and given the current economic times, we feel we can operate a smaller restaurant more efficiently," he said.
According to informed sources, the restaurateurs have paid more than $1 million in rent since opening 7 1/2 years ago.
The restaurant will occupy a 2,800-square-foot space on the first floor of the two-story building where the kitchen, prep area, office and bathrooms will be located. The space formerly housed a graphic design business for 27 years.
The design by architect Stephen Raciti, who occupies an office on the floor above, calls for a 170-square-foot addition to the front of the building and no modifications to the other three sides of the structure. Cost of the renovation is estimated at $350,000.
The brick exterior will be retained and a 6-foot canopy featuring columns will be added to the facade. The name of the restaurant will be displayed in eight-inch brass letters on the front of the canopy. Design elements include arched lintels above the upstairs windows.
An existing illuminated blade sign dating to 1955 located 11 feet off the sidewalk will be retained and raised above the canopy.
"It’s nonconforming now," Raciti told the Zoning Board, "but I feel it has some historical value. It recalls an older Red Bank and we would like to use it."
The site plan of the two lots involved includes two wood frame single-family residences located to the east and an area for loading and storage of trash and recyclables.
The site to be developed has only six parking spaces while 28 are required, necessitating a $16,000 contribution to the Municipal Utilities Parking Fund.
Addressing the parking shortfall, McGann said a survey of current restaurant patrons revealed that only 27 percent of lunch patrons drive to the restaurant and park in adjoining lots where public spaces are available. The rest walk from offices in the downtown.
Traffic engineer Elizabeth Oltman gave the board an inventory of parking spaces available to restaurant patrons in three adjacent lots, noting that after 5 p.m. more than 200 parking spaces are available and the peak dining period is 6:30 p.m. Oltman also pointed out that while no parking spaces are dedicated for restaurant patrons in its current location, six will be available at the new location.
Todd Herman praised the aesthetics of the project but noted that the space at 6 Linden Place is likely to remain a restaurant so the new La Pastaria location will actually increase demand for parking in the area.
He told the board that a solution to the parking shortfall could be to demolish a residence across from 30 Linden Place and that this option had been discussed with members of the Arnone family, who own the residence.
McGann objected to including that scenario in the current application as did board member James Erving, who said there was a possibility that 6 Linden Place would not turn out to be a restaurant use.
According to Raciti, La Pastaria could move to the new location by early fall.