HOWELL — Plans for the retail development of 48 acres on the northbound side of Route 9 at the Lanes Mills Road intersection are before the Planning Board.
According to Jay Beste, vice president and director of development for the Goldenberg Group, Blue Bell, Pa., the 465,000-square-foot shopping mall will be what is known in the retail development business as a "power center." When completed, it will be home to about 12 stores, he said.
Beste said prospective anchor store tenants for the Lanes Mill Market Place already include a Target department store, a Lowe’s home improvement center and a Ruby Tuesday restaurant.
Lanes Mill Market Place will abut the Consumer Square shopping center at Route 9 and Locust Avenue. That new retail center includes a Kohl’s department store and an Applebee’s restaurant.
As proposed, Lanes Mill Market Place would have two entrance-exit points: from Route 9 and from Lanes Mill Road.
Beste said the company, which is before the board seeking preliminary and final site plan approval, would like to break ground on the project by early summer 2002 with a completion date projected for the summer of 2003.
He acknowledged there had been a suggestion made by a member of the public for a road to be constructed between the two shopping centers (Lanes Mill Market Place and Consumer Square) in an effort to alleviate traffic in the area.
Beste said the Goldenberg Group was not intending to build that road because, "it’s not doable and it’s not necessary."
To connect the two shopping centers, said Beste, would entail a complex construction of ramps and a bridge.
He noted that shoppers at the Lanes Mill Market Place would exit the retail center directly onto Route 9 near Pool Town and not affect traffic at the Consumer Square shopping center next door.
Beste also observed that the Benderson Group, the owner-developer of Consumer Square, had not been asked to build a connecting road between the two shopping centers because it was not needed. Nor had that developer offered to build such a road, he said.
"And really, they are the ones that would benefit from us connecting our stores to theirs," Beste observed, noting, "We don’t put a single vehicle onto Locust Avenue," which is the street off Route 9 that has an entrance-exit to Consumer Square.
Also, according to Beste, a connecting road is not possible because the Consumer Square shopping center, with a 20-foot high retaining wall at the property line, is at a different elevation than the Lanes Mill Market Place proposed construction and there is no way for the two to physically connect since the proposed retail center is below the Consumer Square road.