Target expansion plan a bull's-eye for planners Dept. store to add 11,500 sq. ft., adjust traffic circulation BY COLLEEN LUTOLF Staff Writer COLLEEN LUTOLF Target on Route 70 will soon begin construction on a 11,500-square-foot addition to its store, along with a revamped circulation pattern that will shorten the median drivers encounter when they enter Target's parking lot on Route 70. Target shoppers will soon have more to love.Brick Township planners unanimously approved, 7-0, at a Sept. 20 workshop meeting a 11,500-square-foot addition to the Target department store on Cedar Bridge Avenue and Route 70. "Every five to seven years [Target] tries to remodel their stores and bring it up to current-day standards," said John Meyer, Target's engineering consultant. Part of the expansion plan is for additional stockroom that would enable Target to remove trailers that have been stationed along its property on Cedar Bridge Road, Meyer said. A new entrance on the store's southern side will allow shoppers who park there easier access to the store. Planners requested Target also place at least two handicapped parking spaces within that string of parking spaces to allow any disabled persons to avoid the foot traffic in front of the store. "They can go into Target and leave and never hit the front of the store where it's very busy," said the township's traffic engineer Mark Kataryniak, of Birdsall Engineering. Target representatives also granted a request by Chairman Daniel Kelly to place benches in front of the store for shoppers waiting for a bus. Kelly requested the benches be covered, but Target representatives agreed only to uncovered benches. The median that drivers may have found particularly pesky at the store's Route 70 entrance will also be shortened to allow drivers to make a left-hand turn to access a service road that leads to Circuit City, according to plans. An access driveway to stores currently under construction north of Target will also be constructed. Five James Road residents, whose backyards abut the rear of the store, attended the Sept. 13 board meeting not to object to the expansion plans, but to make suggestions to Target representatives regarding their plans. Gerry Tubby, a 30-year Brick resident, said she was happy to see Target become a next-door neighbor in 1996, but was attending the meeting in hopes that Target representatives would address some of her and her neighbors' concerns, which they did. Tubby's neighbor, Lynn Rhoads, requested Target decrease the height intended for a Target sign that would rise above the top of a fence constructed to keep sound and light from reaching residents' homes. "There's enough light disturbance as it is," she said. "I don't see [how] 18 inches is going to be a difference. Do we really need a variance?" Target was requesting a variance for the sign height, but withdrew the request at the Sept. 20 meeting. "One thing we did notice overall was the upkeep of the basin area," Rhoads named as another concern at the Sept. 13 meeting. "Bags and debris, a shopping cart was in there. We're concerned with Target maintaining what they already have." Lilypad growth in the basin was proof that the water in it was stagnant, Rhoads said, and requested an aerator be installed. Target complied with that request as well. Residents also complained of noise generated by a street sweeper that comes to clean the lot as early as 2:30 a.m. "If I fired a lawn mower or a chain saw at that hour, people would say something about it," Rhoads said. Meyer said Target's store manager would be notified of the noise and litter complaints