Coming soon, maybe, to the still-vacant Union Street Village: plastic surgeons.
Unable to get even a nibble for its retail space, the owner of Union Street Village last night sought, and obtained, a change allowing medical offices on the ground floor.
The Red Bank Planning Board approved a site plan change clearing professional or medical use of the space, at the corner of Union Street and Wharf Avenue, provided the bank that owns the building kick $12,500 into the borough parking fund to offset a five-space deficiency.
Amboy Bank, which had financed the construction of the eight-unit condo project, took it over last October in lieu of a foreclosure. Bank chief operating officer Stanley Koreyva Jr. told the board only condo unit has been sold and will soon be occupied.
Prices for the units originally went as high as $2.15 million for two bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths. Since then, asking prices have been slashed at least 60 percent..
As for the 7,000-square-foot first-floor retail space, no go.
“We’ve had no takers,” Koreyva said, “and in our analysis there is no interest.”
There is, though, a letter of intent by a plastic surgery practice to move in, he said. And Riverview Medical Center, which is across the street from the structure, has informally pledged to make parking available in its facilities if the doctors who move in have hospital privileges, Koreyva said.
As for the residential units, if they don’t sell, “we’ll look to rent,” he said.
The building is at the center of pending fraud indictment against its builder. Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin’s office says $730,000 was diverted during development and construction of the building to the construction of the year-old house on Poricy Pond in Middletown.
