The Duxiana store has vacated the building dubbed the Temple of Fashion, built in 1894. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
In this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn: a flurry of activity to report from Broad Street in Red Bank, including:
• a new vacancy in a historic building in the center of the downtown
• the recent opening of Red Bank Family Pharmacy
• plans for a new sushi restaurant
Plus, there’s interesting news about a new restaurant coming to the Grove in Shrewsbury.
A rendering of the facade of the proposed Red Lantern restaurant at 132 Broad Street. Below, the newly opened Red Bank Family Pharmacy, at 141 Broad. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
• After 17 years at 37 Broad Street, luxury bedding retailer Duxiana departed last week. That opens up 2,000 square feet of space that commercial real estate broker Geof Brothers, who has the listing, says may serve as an indicator of the downtown’s recovery from the recession of 2009 and its future direction. Why? Because it’s smack in the heart of town and just the size that many retailers are looking for, he says.
Brothers told Churn he’s already had several inquiries about food uses, but he’s “desperately trying” to attract a women’s or men’s clothing store to shore up the non-food retail sector and give diners another reason to stroll and shop.
The space is in a building known as the Temple of Fashion, built in 1894 by the Weis family, milliners. The family of Sigmund Eisner, who married one of the Weis daughters — Bertha — later owned the building, which in 1940 had an A&P store on the ground floor, according to the Red Bank Register.
It’s now owned by Jack Anderson, proprietor of Jack’s Music, on the opposite side of Broad.
• Speaking of mattresses… Red Lantern, a sushi and Asian cuisine restaurant, hopes to set up at 132 Broad Street, in a retail space last and briefly occupied by Monmouth Mattress. So says a filing at the borough planning and zoning office.
The applicant is Top Notch Delicasies, owned by Yen Chung of Parsippany and and Ke Ha Du of Harrison. They’ll need variances to convert the space to primary food use and for parking, with 25 spaces required and none provided, according to the filing.
No hearing date has yet ben set.
• More than two years after it was approved, Red Bank Family Pharmacy opened last month, in a part of the space last occupied by Jade Garden Chinese restaurant — and just across the street from the vacant former shell of the Red Bank Professional Pharmacy, which closed in December, 2012.
The new business is owned by Kam Patel, a pharmacist with stores in Ocean Township and Neptune. It’s run by licensed pharmacist Erik Jodelka, who notes that the business has parking out back and offers free local delivery. A grand opening is planned for February 5 and 6, he says.
• Metrovation, owner of the Grove in Shrewsbury,  is planning to add a restaurant with a liquor license, firm principal Chris Cole tells Churn.
The restaurant would take the space now occupied by Country Kitchens, which is to relocate across Broad Street/Route 35 to a Metrovation-owned building just north of the Grove West. And the liquor license is the one acquired from the former Memory Lanes bowling alley.
Cole declined to identify the restaurant pending the signing of a lease.
• And speaking of Metrovation, which also developed the West Side Lofts project in Red Bank, Triumph Brewing Company appears on track for a possible late April, early May opening, says Cole. The brew pub and restaurant, owned by Adam Rechnitz, would co-anchor the 91-unit residential project with West Elm, a furniture chain that opened there in October.
• The slim, five-story building at 170 Monmouth Street, opposite the Red Bank train station, is for sale. The asking price is $2.875 million, and though there’s no retail in it now, retail, office and residential uses are all permitted in the zone.
Neil Barone, who handled the sale when the 11,000-square-foot building last changed hands in 2008, is the listing agent.
