What will be the future of the former Stop & Shop on Central and Middlesex avenues? That was the focus of discussion at the Nov. 29 meeting of the Metuchen Planning Board.
Developer Renaissance Properties gave a slide-show presentation of the overall application that included photographs of other out-of-town commercial areas on which parts of the project would be modeled, as well as artists’ renditions of what the development would look like when completed.
Robert McDaid, president of Renaissance Properties, said he began planning the project approximately six years ago.
“It was kind of difficult to lay something out,” McDaid said. “We finally came up with a plan that provided buildings that would run along Central Avenue. This is a $70 million project with 120 residential units.”
According to the application, 121 total residential units are proposed for the development, of which 15 units will be one-bedroom apartments, 102 units will be two-bedroom, and four units will be three-bedroom.
Of the 121 units, 17 will be reserved as affordable housing rental units, with the remaining 104 units to be sold as private residences.
“The affordable housing units would be dispersed throughout the project,” McDaid said. “A lot of people feel they detract from the project, but affordable housing goes to regular people like police and firemen.”
The subject property is located on the south side of Middlesex Avenue and the west side of Lake Avenue. The 5.85-acre site is located within the D-1 (Downtown Development District) Zone.
The site currently contains a vacant grocery store, which was formerly a Stop & Shop, Boro Hardware, La Rosa’s Pizza, several vacant single-family dwellings, parking lots, and a wooded area. All existing structures would be demolished to make way for the development, according to the application.
The developer proposes to construct four buildings that are each up to four stories in height: a 17,910-square-foot Building A, with residential, retail, and restaurant uses; a 31,785-square-foot Building B, with residential, retail, and office uses; a 13,857-square-foot Building C, with residential and retail uses; and a 13,520-square-foot Building D, with residential apartments, a bank, a hardware store, a greenhouse, and an office for the property’s superintendent.
The application proposes a total of 517 parking spaces spread around the site, which includes 258 spaces in a proposed parking deck, 234 spaces in surface parking, and 25 spaces in on-street parking.
“One of the things that I see as a retail developer is that to attract people to come to Metuchen to shop, you need more,” McDaid said. “There is not enough in downtown to attract people to come. Other towns, such as Westfield, Summit, Ridgewood, and Spring Lake, have a little bit more.”
But McDaid said the development would limit itself to only about 20 retail stores.
“We only plan to attend to 20 tenants,” he said. “One of them is already there, the hardware store. It is not as if we would flood the town with 50 tenants.”
McDaid said that a new grocery store of about “10,000 to 15,000 square feet” would be part of the development.
Boro Hardware owner Steve Epstein, who also owns much of the surrounding property, said that he originally entered into discussions with McDaid years ago as a way to save his own business.
“This retail climate is very difficult to survive in,” Epstein said. “There aren’t too many hardware stores left, and my main concern is my business. In order to survive, we cannot stay the same. I have to expand my business and offer different things.”
Epstein said that according to current plans, Boro Hardware, which was built by his grandfather in 1953, would be relocated into one of the new buildings.
“It should not be more than a day, or a couple days, or maybe a week where I may be out of business,” Epstein said. “The intention is to put us into building D, open my new store, and then take down my old building.”
McDaid said that the same cannot be done for La Rosa’s Pizza, however, for which Epstein serves as the landlord.
“La Rosa’s would be unable to operate for 12 to 18 months during the construction,” he said.
La Rosa’s Pizza has been in business for the past 35 years. It is currently in the seventh year of a 10-year lease with Epstein, but at the meeting Epstein said that the lease terms allow for the lease to be broken as a result of “rebuilding or relocating.”
After the meeting, La Rosa’s owner, Olympia Keane, said she has decided she will seek to relocate the pizzeria.
“We don’t believe we will pursue it anymore, but we do want to stay in Metuchen,” Keane said. “We were hoping to stay in business without being closed at all.”
During the meeting’s public comments portion, resident Justin Manley said that he believes the proposed development is “too much” for the area.
“Is parking adequate for all the uses that we anticipate? I think it is too much in a small space, but I think it is the right stuff,” Manley said. “But we will get more into that over the next several meetings.”
Discussions on the application have been continued to the Planning Board’s Dec. 6 meeting.