Office building considered for Drum Point Rd.

Office building considered for Drum Point Rd.

By karl vilacoba

Staff Writer

BRICK — A two-story office and retail building planned for the corner of Drum Point Road and Huppert Drive would likely house specialty shops if approved, according to its applicants.

The Planning Board took a look at an application by Pinecrest Homes, Brick, for a 25,000-square-foot building at its Nov. 13 meeting. The lot is currently a vacant gravel area surrounded by a chain-link fence, according to the application.

The applicant’s engineer, Frank Baer, said the building would likely house two offices in its upstairs and two retail units on the first floor. Since there were no firm tenants lined up, Baer said he could not name the facility’s hours of operation.

Contract purchaser Pete Reyhberger said the building’s tenants would not be a convenience store or any other high-volume traffic producer.

"I anticipate a dress shop, a nail shop, a boutique or that kind of thing," Reyhberger said. "We’ll only have one bathroom (per facility), so we couldn’t have a restaurant."

The applicants sought a variance regarding the size of the parking spaces, which Brick’s ordinance calls for to be 10 by 18 feet in dimension. According to the plans, the lot would contain 24 spaces, although 21 would be mandatory, at 9-by-20-foot dimensions.

"Everything I read says the trends are towards SUVs, pickup trucks and other vehicles which are wider. In my opinion, the 9-foot parking stall is outmoded," said board member Sal Petoia. "We don’t want to cause off-street parking and compromise the neighborhood there, either."

A few neighborhood residents expressed concerns about stormwater runoff, the already congested traffic conditions in the area, and the planned property buffers. Baer said the property’s corner location made variances regarding buffers necessary. However, a board-on-board fence would be installed to keep headlights and other distractions from bothering neighborhood residents, he said.

"It is extremely hard to get out of the neighborhood," Pitcarin Road resident Jay Bellazzi said. "When the light turns red, nobody wants to let you in or out."

The building design, which features beige vinyl siding and a dark roof, was also a concern to some on the board because it too closely resembled a house.

The applicant’s attorney, Mark Troncone, of King, Kitrick, Jackson & Troncone, Brick, said the plans would be worked on with the applicants to address some of these issues before their next meeting with the board Dec. 4.