The White Street lot, home to this weekend’s International Flavor Festival, has long been eyed as a solution to the downtown’s parking woes. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials plan to spend $300,000 in coming months on parking improvements at borough hall and two downtown lots.
But merchants and visitors who’ve been waiting for the movement toward a possible parking garage on White Street will have to wait a bit more.
The demolition of this house at 106 Monmouth Street last summer created room for additional parking at borough hall next door, Menna says. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
On the agenda for Wednesday night’s bimonthly meeting of the borough council is the introduction of a $300,000 bond for parking utility improvements – as well as one for $1.53 million for this year’s road program and another that would put $877,000 into water utility upgrades.
Mayor Pasquale Menna tells redbankgreen that the parking funds would be allocated thusly:
• About $100,000 for the expansion of the borough hall parking lot into space acquired with the 2014 demolition of a borough-owned structure next door, at 106 Monmouth Street. The work and changes in the existing lot are expected to yield 12 to 14 new spaces.
• Repaving and other improvements in the English Plaza lot, to the tune of about $65,000.
• Repaving and other improvements in the White Street lot, at an estimated cost of $85,000.
• “Ancillary tree trimming and lighting” in the lots.
It’s mostly “just maintenance” in the two downtown lots, Menna said.
And what about a possible garage on White Street?
A consultant’s report commissioned more than a year ago and delivered to the governing body late last year remains unavailable for public review. The 100-plus page report, by the civil engineering firm CME Associates, offers recommendations on how the town might leverage the 2.3-acre White Street lot, Menna has previously said.
The borough parking committee has discussed the report, Menna said, and he expects it to be the subject of an executive session again Wednesday night.
The closed-door meetings are necessary and legal because they involve possible negotiations over real estate, Menna has said.
Menna said whatever action might result from those sessions, and when, is for the council to decide. But his own preference, he said, is that the council calls for proposals from any and all parties who want to submit them, much as it did with the solicitation for the tennis court site in Marine Park. That process yielded two detailed development plans and a pledge of a $500,000 for the town to maintain the red-clay courts.
Menna said a “liberal and expansive approach” will likely result in “something better than elected officials and savants come up with.”
Here’s the full agenda for Wednesday night’s meeting: RB Council Agenda 042215The council meets at 6:30 p.m. at borough hall, 90 Monmouth Street.
