From the issue of April 20, 2006.
Businesses take issue with new mall plans
To the editor:
To all residents of the Borough of Manville from business owners, employees and concerned citizens of Manville:
Over the past years, there has been an ongoing process of redeveloping the Rustic Mall property. Many of our local business owners and citizens have been involved from the beginning in shaping the future of our downtown district.
In July of 2000, a revitalization strategy study was commissioned and paid for by Somerset County, the Somerset Coalition for Smart Growth, and the Borough of Manville.
The Brown and Keener report concluded, "The Rustic Mall site offers the unique opportunity to create a town center, as it is the geographic and retail center, the heart of the community."
The vision and good of the Brown and Keener report was to incorporate the mall redevelopment into the existing business district, thus enhancing a safe, pedestrian friendly, downtown.
At the March 27 Borough Council meeting, the owners of the Rustic Mall and their team of lawyers presented their Rustic Mall redevelopment plan. The mall plan is nothing even close to what had been proposed and presented over the years.
Rather than becoming part of the downtown community, the Rustic Mall owners have literally turned their backs on the community we all share. The Rustic Mall owners have chosen to rebuild a 1950s style strip mall rather than a town enhancing design.
The plan segregates itself from the rest of the downtown district, totally ignoring the many great ideas from the Brown and Keener report. Their plan creates an unappealing, dead end alleyway behind the Main Street properties. This would be detrimental to the community as well as to the safety of our citizens and visitors.
Accessibility for ambulances, fire trucks, and emergency vehicles in such a limited space, would put lives and property at risk. It would also have a negative impact on tractor-trailer traffic and the businesses they serve.
Crime and safety is also a concern for employees, patrons and parents in a darkened alleyway with inadequate parking for the dozens of businesses that share the border with the mall property. As this plan stands, it raises issues of responsibility and legal liability.
The main street properties have supported and been supported by the community long before the mall existed. For huge corporations: community, loyalty, aesthetics and conscience, do not show up on ledgers. Profits are the motivating factor, not the quality of life left behind once the building is done.
For the rest of us: we live, pray, work and co-exist here as part of a greater community. We need to ensure that his redevelopment is done to enhance our town, not bend to the will of a corporation that does not live and work side by side with us everyday.
If you share any of our concerns or have questions about the redevelopment of our downtown, please express them to any of our borough officials by writing, phone, or in person.
Your support is also greatly appreciated at the upcoming council and planning board meetings.
Oscar Gonzalez
Discount Mattress & Furniture Co.
Mary Talbit
Hair House International
Dr. Maria Auletta
Bill Warren
Manville Area Federal Credit Union
Bruce Hartzog
Bongiorno & Associates Insurance
Debbie Hallman
Curves for Women Fitness
Manville Business & Professional Association
Fundraising dinner canceled
To the editor:
It is with great disappointment that the Scoop Dinner fundraiser to benefit the Manville Recreation must be canceled. The dinner was scheduled to take place this Friday at the VFW.
The lack of support from the school parents and community has caused this event not to take place. The VFW graciously donated the hall for the evening and out of all the parents in the schools, only 25 volunteered to make a dish, mostly pasta, for the dinner.
You can’t sponsor a dinner with only a few dishes and expect to have food available for many people.
Over 155 bottles of soda were promised but we really needed the meals for this to be a success.
Some parents even donated in all three categories of a dish, dessert and drinks.
What happened to our support for the kids and others throughout the recreation programs?
There are many who participate in the programs from sports to the senior programs yet we could not even get enough to run a fundraiser to help them. We should be ashamed of this.
Second-grade teacher Cindy Cooper at Weston School was kind enough to think about us, your children, and our community and for someone who doesn’t even live here, comes up with an idea to help and there is no support.
Not only did letters go home with the school children, to the recreation programs, but also letters from Mrs. Cooper were also hand delivered to local businesses over the last few weeks.
The story in The Manville News didn’t even receive one volunteer when asked for help.
Many have benefited from the Manville Recreation programs especially the sports over the many years. If it weren’t for the basis of the recreation programs, many of our high school standouts would not be who they are today. They have that success in the past and present from their experience through the recreation sports programs.
I know that myself with my three sons, they have participated in recreation programs over the past 15 years ever since they were little and today, one is still participating and one is on the sports teams at Manville High School.
It’s a shame that we as a community couldn’t even come together to help our own when help was needed.
The recreation needed help to rebuild the programs, equipment and building from the recent fire and Mrs. Cooper thought we could help by sponsoring a dinner for their benefit.
The recreation sponsors so many programs for all of our kids like the Easter egg hunt, photos with Santa, arts and crafts at the pools and much more that we should have come together as a community to help them so they could continue providing these programs.
Sure the recreation is disappointed and they will have to find other ways to raise funds to continue all their great programs.
What a shame, too bad we couldn’t help.
Mary Ellen Zangara
Sidorske Avenue
Mall plans right for Manville
To the editor:
This is response to a recent letter sent to the residents of Manville by the Manville Business and Professional Association with reference to the conceptual plan design regarding the redevelopment of the Rustic Mall.
The letter the residents received makes note of the Brown and Keener Studies, and also the welfare and safety of our community.
The plan that was presented to the mayor and council and those in attendance was a conceptual plan that contained all the aspects of the Brown and Keener study along with the plan presented by NAIOP and the plan submitted by Shore Depalma for redevelopment which was unanimously adopted by the Planning Board and the mayor and council regarding the Rustic Mall.
The studies referenced in the letter were a study that encompassed the entire South Main Street area. The study called for homes by Rhythms of the Night Restaurant and Steve’s Tire; and it called for sprucing up of the stores on Main Street to make it enticing for consumers to want to walk on Main Street and shop.
That is why we asked the Somerset County Freeholders for grants to help the stores on South Main Street with façade improvement grants. These grants are a 50 percent match by the store owners, and the grant will cover the other 50 percent of the cost for the façade improvement.
Some of the businesses on South Main Street have taken advantage of this opportunity, but there was only one business owner adjoining the Rustic Mall that has applied for this grant to change the façade of their building.
None of the other businesses on the adjoining property of the Rustic Mall has even applied.
Since the time the conceptual plans were presented, we have had a number of meetings with the owners of the Rustic Mall, and all the concerns of the residents and business owners who were present at that meeting have been addressed.
The major concern of the businesses on Main Street was the fact that the free parking they have enjoyed all these years at the Rustic Mall was going to be taken away and that there were not enough spaces on Main Street for people who wanted to park and shop to use their stores and they would lose business.
Those concerns are being addressed, and the new plans will have additional spaces with the added distance between buildings.
The distance between buildings is going to be extended from the initial plan of 60 feet. This will give plenty of room for emergency vehicles and delivery vehicles to co-exist in the space between the back of the buildings on South Main Street and the buildings at the Rustic Mall.
To give you an example, the distance between buildings on South Main Street from the front of the building on one side of Main Street to the front of the building on the other side of Main Street is approximately 70 feet that includes three lanes of traffic and parking on both sides of the street, along with the sidewalks. One of the other concerns was a poorly lit area between the back of the Main Street business to the back of the Rustic Mall business, this area is going to be well lit, and will not be conducive to hang-outs or street gangs as implied in the letter.
We have had a good working relationship with the owners of the Rustic Mall since we declared the site in need of redevelopment, and through the negotiation process they have worked with the town and have listened to the legitimate concerns of our residents. I look forward to a long working relationship between the Borough of Manville and the owners of this property.
In the 15 years I have been mayor, I have conducted myself and addressed issues with only the best interest of the residents of the Borough of Manville in mind.
I live in Manville and pay taxes in Manville, and someday I will probably die in Manville. I made a promise when I first became mayor that in no way would I jeopardize the safety and well-being of the residents of this great borough for anyone or anything and I will continue to live by that creed.
Despite the inferences in the letter by the MBPA I feel that we are working towards another rewarding chapter in our history with the redevelopment of the Rustic Mall.
Thank you for reading this long letter and I look forward to the new presentation of the plans for the Rustic Mall sometime in late June or early July. I hope to see you there.
Angelo Corradino
Mayor of Manville

