UPPER FREEHOLD — Tractor Supply Company (TSC) plans to open its new store in Upper Freehold in the spring of 2010.
The store will be located on a 5.7-acre lot near the intersection of Route 524 and Imlaystown-Hightstown Road (Route 43). Ground should be broken in four months, according to project manager Wendy Fulton.
The Planning Board unanimously approved the TSC application at its May 19 meeting. TSC is the largest retail farm and ranch store chain in the United States, according to the company’s website.
Fulton said the one-story building would measure 19,000 square feet and would have an adjacent 20,000-square-foot fenced yard for the storage of large items.
The applicant’s attorney, Michael Osterman, said that since the previous hearing in April, TSC has reached an agreement with neighboring homeowners Bill and Maureen Nevins to install a 6-foot high, white stockade fence around their lot. In exchange, the Nevins have agreed to grant a triangular easement for the TSC sign on Route 524. This would allow the company to conform to the township ordinance requiring signs to be no more than 15 feet high. Previously, TSC wanted to put up a 25-foot high sign.
The board has allowed TSC to put up a façade sign of 147 feet, when the ordinance only allows for 142 feet, or 5 percent of the façade. The applicant’s engineer, Scott Turner, said that the signs are standardized, so it would not be easy to reduce them by 5 square feet.
Board member Patricia Dorey said the TSC building in Flemington is more attractive than the one proposed for Upper Freehold. Fulton said that building’s design had to conform to that municipality’s design guidelines. Fulton said the Upper Freehold building would be the first designed with a pitched roof to fit the township’s design criteria
and would have awnings. Board member Richard Stern asked the applicant to use a wrought iron-type fence in the front yard. The rest of the fencing would be chain-link. At an earlier meeting, concerns about the dangers of the Route 524/Route 43 intersection had been raised. Chairman
John Mele said Monmouth County is responsible for the oversight of improvements to the intersection.
Doug Walsh, the developer of the Cox’s Corner professional park on the other corner of Route 524 and Imlaystown-Hightstown Road, said at the earlier meeting that while he is in charge of making some of the road improvements, he cannot do so until the New Jersey Department of Transportation moves the switch-gear box for lights on Route I-195.
“Once they do that, JCP&L will move one pole,” Walsh said at that time. “Then, when Verizon moves lines off the old poles, we can move those poles. Once the poles are gone, we can make improvement to the intersection.”
Mele has recommended the board send a letter to the county and the utility companies asking them to expedite the work.
Board member and farmer Bob Freiberger said that choosing Upper Freehold speaks highly of TSC.
“They did their research,” he said, noting the number of horse farms and preserved farmland in the area.
“This will be an asset to the community,” he said.