BY VICTORIA HURLEY-SCHUBERT
Staff Writer
MARLBORO – An application for a new day-care facility off Route 79 in the Morganville section of the township was opened before the Zoning Board of Adjustment on May 15.
The Learning Experience, a franchise of child-care centers, wants to construct a building no greater than 14,960 square feet on an 8.2-acre lot behind the Waitt Funeral Home and residential homes, said attorney Richard Tilton, representing the franchise owners. The site is bordered by Orchard Parkway on the north.
Erez Halevah, the owner of Tuscany Homes, Morganville, and Tony Nicosia, the owner of Nicosia Masonry, English-town, are the co-owners of the franchise location. They purchased the property more than a year ago for an undisclosed price.
If the building is approved by the zoning board and constructed it will be leased to and operated by another party, said Nicosia, who will act as the landlord with Halevah.
“There’s a big need for day care, and it’s a good business to get into,” Nicosia said.
According to testimony presented at the meeting, up to 264 children from 6 weeks to 6 years old will be cared for in a full-day program from 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. five days a week. There would be 31 employees at the center. There will be a 5,000-square-foot playground on site (included in the total square footage).
The single-story, 23-foot-tall building will have no frontage on Route 79 and will be reached by a 25-foot-wide, shared driveway with the funeral home. The building will be set back 750 feet from Route 79 and 700 feet from high tension wires in back of the property. The funeral home, which has granted The Learn-ing Experience an easement, will have improvements made to its parking lot, according to the testimony.
The Learning Experience lot is zoned residential and borders a commercial zone to the south, so the applicant is seeking a variance from the zoning board to convert the property to a commercial use.
“The property makes a nice transition between the residential to the north and potential commercial to the south,” said project engineer Lorali Totten, of Crest Engineering Associates, Millstone Township.
There will be 60 parking spaces on the site. An impervious coverage waiver is needed because with 25 percent of the site covered, the application exceeds the township maximum of 15 percent coverage. Totten said the applicants are looking for ways to rearrange the parking to reduce the impervious coverage.
The Learning Experience, in operation since 1979 under the brand Tutor Time, has its corporate headquarters in Parsippany. There are 12 operating locations in New Jersey and 35 more are under development, according to the company’s Internet Web site.
There is one objector to the application, Dallenbach Sand Company, of Monroe Township, which owns a lot within 200 feet of the subject property.
The application will continue at the zoning board’s Aug. 21 meeting.
In other board business, an application filed by Verizon for a wireless telecommunication facility and equipment cabinets at the base of a tower on Marlboro Township Municipal Utilities Authority property at 14 Harbor Road was moved from the zoning board to the Planning Board.