By David Kilby, Staff Writer
MONROE —The Applegarth Professional Center on Cranbury Half Acre and Applegarth roads received approval from the Zoning Board of Adjustment on Tuesday to expand its retail space.
The center now has a few unoccupied medical office buildings, a strip mall, a PNC bank and a CVS pharmacy.
It was approved Tuesday for 7,600 extra square feet of retail along with two restaurants as well as a road connection to the proposed park and ride adjacent to the center.
The restaurants will be 6,300 and 5,008 square feet. In the site plan, the larger restaurant would accommodate 250 seats and 25 employees, and the smaller one would have 150 seats and 12 employees, but that is subject to change, said Ron Aulenbach, director of engineering for Edgewood Properties, which owns the center.
The proposed park and ride, previously approved by the board, was not part of the Applegarth Center application, but came up because a connection to it was deemed profitable for the Applegarth Center.
The park and ride would relieve Applegarth Road from the cars that park on the shoulder since most of those cars are from people using the nearby bus stop. The new park and ride also would create a new four-way intersection, and a traffic light would be added at no cost to taxpayers, Mr. Aulenbach said.
”We’ve had a lot of desire from retail tenants to come to this site,” Mr. Aulenbach said.
Residents of Clearbrook, a adult community across the street from the center, would have access to the site via the park-and-ride lot, giving them easy access to the new retail, Mr. Aulenbach said.
Up to four entities may occupy the retail space, but there are only six allowed categories of retailers for each: a pizzeria or small eatery, a bagel shop, a convenience store, a sandwich shop, a barber or a nail salon. The board also decided no 24-hour stores will be allowed.
As for the restaurants, Mr. Aulenbach said it is difficult to propose architectural details at this point since no tenants have decided to set up shop yet.
”Unless you have something official to show them, they’re not going to sign the dotted line,” he added.
The main concern of the board was the number of parking spaces proposed for the site. The site would have 769 parking spaces when plans are finished. The township originally required 837.
But access to the park-and-ride would provide an additional 137 spaces for the center.
Karl Pehnke, traffic engineer for Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, addressed this topic at the meeting. He said most town ordinances require four to five parking spaces per 1,000 feet of commercial space, whereas Monroe’s ordinance requires 6.6 per 1,000 square feet.
”Your ordinances are very conservative from that standpoint,” he said.
He said the center would only have 500 to 600 cars in its parking lot at its peak, and the traffic for the medical offices, retail stores and restaurants would be at different times.
”Granting the parking variance will create no trouble,” he said.
Victor Furmanec, principal of Beacon Planning and Consulting Services LLC, and site planner, explained why more retail would be beneficial to the Applegarth Center.
”It’s located on a commercial corridor connecting traffic to Route 33 and Exit 8A of the Turnpike,” he said.
He said many residents wind up traveling out of town since there are no adequate local commercial centers.
”This (the new site plan) provides residents with a more immediate service to daily needs and conserves energy in that matter,” he added.
He also said the new site plan, with the increased retail, would provide for the community and improve the lifestyle of residents.
But members of the public dissented.
”I think this is a bit premature,” said Melvin Bonvy, a member of the board of directors for Clearbrook.
He said the original plans for the site were for a “professional center” with limited retail.
Over the past five to eight years, the board has turned down plans for a supermarket and other large retail development plans, he mentioned.
”It’s been a struggle,” Mr. Aulenbach said. “When we started the project, 100,000 square feet of medical offices wasn’t hard to envision.”
Sara Hornichter, from Clearbrook, also objected to the plans. She said it would bring “a lot of traffic” to the Clearbrook area.
”To say it isn’t going to have an impact on the traffic is ridiculous,” she said.
All members of the zoning board except Mark Klein approved the new site plan. Mr. Klein voted no because he said he doesn’t think the amount of parking spaces for the center would be sufficient.
Edgewood Properties will finalize the resolution for the site plan at the next board meeting March 29. It also must receive outside agency approvals before beginning the project, Mr. Aulenbach explained.