A proposal to replace an L-shaped building on Summerfield Avenue with a new four-story mixed-use building near downtown Asbury Park recently took a step forward after the city’s planning board voted to approve its site plan with conditions. Officials voted to approve the proposal for the site at 702 Summerfield Avenue after agreeing to grant three variances and to subject the approval to conditions related to an adjacent city-owned alleyway and to lighting and signage around the proposed building.
Professionals working on behalf of the applicant, 702 Summerfield AP Group, LLC, and 321 Lofts Retreat LLC submitted testimony during the two-hour meeting on May 18. They provided the board and members of the public with an updated site plan from the proposal, which the board reviewed on March 2 and received pushback from officials due to concerns about parking, building infrastructure, lighting, and stormwater management.
Jersey Digs reported in April that the board carried the application for the building, which includes 30 residential units and over 1,900 square feet of retail, to May 18 after officials requested that building infrastructure, including the bike room, parking lot, and trash and storage rooms, be expanded.
The updated proposal, approved by the planning board, expanded the building’s trash room and added a trash compactor, while also relocating the proposed bike room and adding an 11-car stacked parking system. Although zoning in the area requires 1.5 parking spaces per residential unit, which would mean the applicant is required to add a total of 45 spaces, the approved plan will include 35 parking spaces and grant 2 parking credits due to the addition of parking for electric vehicles.
Jason Tuvel, an attorney representing the applicant, said the applicant will purchase residential parking permits in the area to comply with the parking requirement in the zoning district. The plan also specified the building’s color scheme, which was one of the concerns raised by the board during the March meeting.
The professionals who submitted testimony during the meeting in May and the board’s own professionals also clarified that, due to the building’s configuration, reducing the overall retail footprint would not have added a significant number of on-site parking spaces, as it would require a second entrance off Summerfield Avenue. Moreover, the applicant was already seeking a variance for insufficient frontage of the commercial space, which made the idea of a second entrance for parking infeasible.
The proposed building will include 30 condominium units and one deeded parking space per unit, Tuvel said.
However, Asbury Park Mayor John Moor said that, even though he really liked the proposal, he would have liked to see more parking, even if it meant eliminating the building’s retail footprint.
“Right now, people downtown are saying that there are empty stores all over the place,” the mayor said. “At Summerfield Avenue, you are not even close to the [Central Business District], so good luck renting your stores. I know you tried, and that is deeply appreciated.”
The board voted to approve three variances for the ground-floor commercial space, which is required to be 35% of the building’s footprint instead of the approximately 23% in the proposal, a variance for building height, and a variance for ground-floor frontage.
Planning board member Jim Henry was the only official to vote against the proposal, even though the board chairwoman, Barbara Krzak, noted that she was disappointed with the proposal for on-site parking.
Mayor Moor added at the end of the meeting that he, the planning board, and the city manager were surprised to learn that the city owns an alleyway located just west of the site. That alleyway, according to the updated proposal, would have been gated and expanded by a three-foot easement into the lot at 702 Summerfield Avenue, but the board said that the gate and the alleyway itself created a significant liability challenge for the city.
“I’m not blaming you guys; I am blaming you and the city,” Moor said about the liability surrounding the alleyway. “I am the mayor, and if I weren’t sitting up here, I wouldn’t know this is going down. The city manager does not know this is going down. I texted him, and he said, ‘what the fuck?’”
The board added a condition that the applicant must work to resolve the city’s liability regarding the alleyway before approval is finalized. Tuvel concurred before Chairwoman Krzak made a motion to adjourn the meeting.
