FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP – A new medical office building may be coming to Route 537.
Following testimony at the Jan. 17 meeting of the Planning Board, the board members directed their attorney to draw up a resolution of approval for a plan submitted by Raintree Towne Center Associates, L.P., according to Guy Leighton, the township’s senior planner.
The resolution of approval will be voted on at a future meeting of the Planning Board.
The applicant proposed the construction of a one-story, 25,000-square-foot medical office building on a vacant parcel that lies between Route 537 and the Freehold Post Office within the Raintree shopping center.
As part of the project, the applicant will reconstruct the narrow winding driveway that leads from Village Center Drive to the Freehold Post Office.
The project will also include a curb cut on Route 537 in order to permit a right turn in, right turn out driveway at Route 537. The new driveway will provide direct access to the medical office building.
Leighton said the board members have asked the applicant to go back to Monmouth County officials to reapply for the new Route 537 access.
Representatives of CentraState Medical Center, which is on Route 537 about a quarter-mile west of the Raintree shopping center, had previously objected to the planned right turn in, right turn out driveway.
he hospital’s representatives said at a Planning Board meeting in October that they were concerned about traffic exiting at that point coming into conflict with ambulances that are heading for the hospital.
Leighton said hospital officials have since indicated that they will not object to the new driveway.
The new driveway on Route 537 will be within several hundred feet of the first driveway which permits motorists heading west, including ambulances, to enter the hospital campus.
The right turn in, right turn out driveway would be controlled by a stop sign, according to testimony presented in October. The new driveway would be about 650 feet west of the existing traffic light at the intersection of Route 537 and Village Center Drive, the entrance to the Raintree shopping center.
Access to the medical office building will also be provided from Village Center Drive.
As part of this application the applicant will eliminate the “S” curve driveway that leads from Village Center Drive to the Freehold Post Office and create a straight driveway.
The existing dead end in the post office parking lot will be eliminated. The post office parking lot will connect to a new road that will allow post office customers to go all the way out to Route 537 and then turn right to head west.
That traffic movement is expected to remove some vehicles from the existing entrance/exit of the Raintree shopping center.