McKenna Speaks Up On RiverCenter; Search for a New Director is On

Since Red Bank RiverCenter was established in 1991, the special improvement district overseer has watched downtown go from a "Dead Bank" to "A Cool Little Town" moniker with the different directors to promote these and other marketing magnets along the way.

Nancy Adams was the latest of the organization's string of executive directors over the years. And now, after Adams' sudden departure a couple of weeks ago, the job she held for the past five-plus years is being advertised and RiverCenter Board of Trustees' point person on the Adams issue, former Mayor Ed McKenna, says there's nothing dicey about her departure.

"There's nothing extraordinary about her leaving when she left," McKenna said. "Simply, it was an agreement between Nancy and the board that it was time for each of them to move in another direction. That's essentially what happened."

Who will take Adams' place has yet to be determined, with the job posting just now hitting the "help wanted" ads. But, as history dictates, several directors have come and gone with a typical "it was time to part ways" end.

RiverCenter, which operates on a budget of a little more than $500,000 a year, gets its operational money through a commercial property-based assessment tax garnered from businesses that fall within the borough's special improvement district (SID).

The designation of a SID allows a municipality, under state law, to collect the special tax and hand it over to RiverCenter to use to implement the amenities that come along with it, such as special events, marketing and drawing businesses to fill commercial vacancies.

The SID covers the center, classic downtown Red Bank as well as portions of the West Side, which were brought under the district umbrella in 2007.

There have been known disagreements over the years about the organization's role and direction in up- and downswings in the economy and authority.

In the time that Adams presided over RiverCenter, she brought the vacancy rate downtown down to 4 percent, officials boasted at a borough council meeting not too long ago when approving the organization's budget.

In fact, accollades were heaped on Adams and RiverCenter's progress and collaberation with the governing body's initiatives.

However, it is no secret that Mayor Pat Menna had chastised the organization for not doing its fair share in helping to keep downtown Red Bank clean. And, feeling an imbalance in borough restaurants' promotional interests via RiverCenter, and some borough restaurant owners banded together to create Flavour as their own marketing campaign tool.

RiverCenter and Flavour had melded forces with RiverCenter, however, with RiverCenter sponsoring and organizing Flavour events, according to a previous Patch report. The mayor called the doubling up of marketing a positive thing.

Taking weeks to move forward in a search for a new executive director, the job description is posted and the hunt is on (see attached). Though there has been no mention yet of any prospects to fill the spot.

McKenna, who was mayor when RiverCenter was conceived, said that "Nancy did a lot of good things for Red Bank. We appreciate all she did for Red Bank,  but we just felt we wanted to go in a different direction. Nancy understood it and we decided to part ways."