Shopping center, hotel may come to township

By Matt Chiappardi, Staff Writer
   EAST WINDSOR — The abandoned trucking depot on Route 33 near Probasco Road may be the future site of a major shopping complex, complete with a 100-room hotel and restaurant.
   During Monday’s Township Planning Board meeting, representatives of the 30-acre site’s new owners began outlining their vision for about 130,000 square feet of retail, office and hotel space.
   Members of the Planning Board, including Mayor Janice Mironov, had little to add to the discussion, simply listening to the proposal and indicating they’d be open to further conversations.
   What the developer, Old Bridge-based realty firm Blitzer & Rosenblum, has in mind is a project over “two or three phases of construction,” said President Steven Blitzer.
   The first phase would include about 15 stores in a “high-class upscale shopping center,” he said.
   It could have a “village-type look,” he added, with shingled roofs, goose-neck signs, and large front windows similar to the other centers the developer has put together throughout the state.
   The second phase would include office space, a family-style restaurant, a coffee shop, and a 100-room mid-range hotel, Mr. Blitzer added.
   The idea for a hotel close to retail and residential portions of a neighborhood particularly interested Planning Board member Pete Yeager, who said he saw a similar setup while traveling in Utah.
   ”I could see something like that working in East Windsor,” he said.
   Blitzer & Rosenblum has developed a number of shopping centers throughout the state in places including Howell, Jackson, Neptune, Ocean Grove and Old Bridge. Those centers have, what Mr. Blitzer termed “upscale” shops including a liquor store, nail salon, and Italian Bakery.
   The development representatives said they are also interested in attracting fast-food restaurants, but not the typical McDonald’s or Burger King franchises.
   Christine Cofone of the PPSA real estate consulting firm termed the type of restaurants they’d would try to attract “fresh-food” establishments like Cheeburger Cheeburger or Baja Fresh Mexican Grill.
   The property in question is zoned research/office and once housed the Pitt Ohio trucking depot until it was sold about two years ago. In order for this project to go forward, the property would have to be rezoned, and the developers suggested rezoning it to something like a highway/commercial zone, which could accommodate not only the retail and office space but the hotel.
   Blitzer & Rosenblum have not submitted a site plan and both sides referred to the discussions as preliminary.