Zoning Board Holds First Hearing On Rutgers Plaza Apartment Building Proposal

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Township residents packed the Council Chamber on April 4 for the first of what promises to be several Zoning Board of Adjustment hearings on a proposal to convert the former K-Mart building in Rutgers Plaza into a four-story apartment building.

The proposal is being made by Levin Properties, the owner of Rutgers Plaza at John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Easton Avenue.

The company wants to raze the roughly 100,000-square-foot building and construct in its place the apartment building, designed to house 200 apartments. The size breakdown would be 123 two-bedroom apartments, 69 one-bedroom apartments, and eight three-bedroom apartments.

Only two of eight scheduled witnesses – Levin’s leasing manager and the project engineer – were able to testify to the Board before the 10 p.m. time limit.

Sidney Singer, Levin’s vice president in charge of leasing, told the Board that Levin has been trying to find a retail anchor for that spot since 2018, when questions arose about the financial viability of K-Mart and its parent, Sears.

Concurrent with the search for a retail client, Levin also explored “alternative uses” for the building, Singer told the Board.

Among those uses was a movie theater, a self-storage facility, medical use and sports such as pickleball, he said.

Singer said building impediments such as a relatively low ceiling and columns throughout the space proved unattractive to potential lessors.

The lack of success led Levin to consider a residential use.

“Adding a new anchor as a residential component will revitalize the existing retail space and provide an opportunity for the center to get leased up for the long-term future,” he said.

“Our proposed redevelopment is an appropriate transformation of an older, struggling retail center to a modern mixed-use development,” he said.

Singer said that regardless of whether the township or Levin wants a retail use in that space, it will not happen.

He said that retailers now use analytics, rather than “gut feelings,” in determining where to open new locations.

“Our belief, or Franklin Township’s beliefs, doesn’t matter,” he said. “If the analytics do not check the boxes, retailers will simply move on to locations that do.”

He said that the Easton Avenue market is considered a “secondary retail market sandwiched between the stronger retail markets of Bridgewater, East Brunswick and North Brunswick, and to a lesser extent, Piscataway.”

The retailers do extensive research on what affect opening a store in a new location would have on current, nearby locations, he said.

He said that most of the potential anchors and junior anchor stores are already established in other areas, “where there is a critical mass of retailers.”

“Despite Levin’s efforts since 2018, we have just not found any demand for this location with replacement anchors or junior anchors,” he said.

“We remain committed to preserving retail at Rutgers Plaza, but we must have another anchor to accomplish that,” he said “We cannot continue to have a vacant 100,000-square-foot obsolete building that is not leasable.”

Nearly 20 residents – all of whom seemed to be in opposition to the project and skeptical of the two witnesses’ claims – rose to ask questions of the two witnesses. Comments on the project were not allowed in this stage of the hearing.

The questions asked by the residents revolved around a number of issues, including how hard Levin sought or is seeking a retail tenant for the space, whether any study was done on the apartments’ residents’ effect on the school system, whether Levin had considered sprucing up the space to attract a new retail tenant, whether any sports-related uses were pursued, whether their rents were competitive and could they prove who they talked to in pursuing a retail tenant.

Some residents also questioned how safe the apartment building’s parking lot would be if children played in it, given the building’s proximity to the center’s stores, restaurants and Stop and Shop supermarket.

The next hearing on the applications is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 2 in the Township Council chamber in the Municipal Building on DeMott Lane.

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