Red Bank Hotel Project Faces Planning Scrutiny

A developer’s plan for a proposed 76-room hotel at the site of a former gas station in Red Bank is facing tough questions from a Planning Board that must decide whether the project, along with a request for nearly 20 variances, is the right fit for the borough.

Old Bridge resident and developer Larry Cohen wants to build a six-story Hampton Inn and Suites at 80 Rector Place, most easily recognized as the vacant gas station site at the foot of the Route 35 bridge heading into Middletown. At the planning board meeting Monday night, Cohen and a slew of professionals, described the plan and answered questions from both board members and an unconvinced public.

The primary issues facing development are several. In order to receive preliminary and final major site approval from the board, the project requires numerous variances, many of them relating to the size of the land where Cohen wants to locate his hotel.

In order to fit the more than 45,000-square foot building on the 1.04 acre piece of land abutting the Navesink River, RBank Capital, LLC needs variances for minimum front, back, and side yard setbacks, among others. Though the board pushed back a vote on the project until at least next month, Cohen presented reasons why the hotel, he believes, is a good fit for Red Bank.

“What we’re catering to is the business population,” he said, noting that the location of limited-service hotel in the borough had as much to do with its downtown and entertainment as its businesses. “It’s just got a lot of pluses.”

Hampton Inns and Suites typically average about 70-75 percent occupancy throughout the year, Cohen said, though he hopes his location will do better. If the Red Bank Hampton Inn and Suites averages an occupancy rate of 80 percent, the borough would earn approximately $75,000 a year, Cohen said, from its 3 percent occupancy tax.

The white and red brick building, as presented by an architect’s design Monday, would mostly be a low-maintenance short-term housing option for traveling businessmen, filling a void in Red Bank, Cohen said. The hotel would have an outdoor pool, but no restaurants and no conference rooms, limiting the amount of traffic going in and out each day.

As a concession, the hotel plan also calls for building and maintaining a riverside boardwalk to be used as public space. The only trouble is that it’s next to the hotel and would require many pedestrians to cross four lanes of often-heavy traffic to get to it.

Though the board seemed content to listen to the testimony without interjecting many questions, two particular issues did stand out: the building aesthetic and traffic implications. The first issue centered on the board’s desires for shade to cover rooftop chimneys and ducts, and to have a brick design to be incorporated to more than just the front of the building, including the side, which would be visible to drivers entering Red Bank from Middletown.

When it comes to traffic, however, it’s going to take a bit more than some cover-up to resolve the situation. With the hotel’s proposed location at an intersection Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna said has received failing grades from the state, how people enter and exit is an issue. Entering the hotel from the south would require drivers to cut across two lanes of oncoming traffic traveling at high rates of speed over the bridge. The same goes for drivers exiting the locating and heading north.

Traffic, Menna said, is why the gas station went out of business years ago.

“My recollection is that the residents of Red Bank avoided that gas station like the plague,” he said, specifically because of the difficulty of pulling in and out of the former Exxon station. “It was not a very good business model to be located there. People would avoid it.”

Though public comment will wait until at least the September meeting – the public was only allowed to ask professionals questions concerning their area of expertise during testimony – several people showed up to voice their opposition to the proposed hotel plan.

Stephen Mitchell, an alternate on the Red Bank Environmental Commission, said the proposed hotel is just too intense for the small plot of land builders where builders hope to locate it. The fact that so many variances are required is proof of that, he said.

“They have zero justification for building that there,” he said. “If they had done their due diligence they would have known what the limitations there were.

“ I legitimately think they are trying to pull a fast one here. The town’s rules and regulations are the town’s rules and regulations.”

The next Planning Board meeting is scheduled for Sept. 7 at 7 p.m. in council chambers.