Foodtown redevelopment plan gets a final tweaking Township has received between 40 to 50 inquiries about site BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer BRICK TOWNSHIP - It's been almost five years since township officials inked the $6.1 million deal to purchase the old Foodtown site on Route 70, with the intent to build a community center there. And the battered building and potholed parking lot have sat vacant ever since. Then-Councilman Stephen C. Acropolis declared the plans to build the community center "dead in the water" in 2006, primarily because of traffic and financial concerns. The "This Property For Sale" sign went up in early 2007. The Township Council and Planning Board voted to declare the Foodtown site "an area in need of redevelopment." And Acropolis, who was elected mayor in 2007, says now, "There is a light at the end of the tunnel." The Planning Board was slated to discuss the Metedeconk Village Redevelopment Plan at the May 14 board meeting. Once the board approves the Metedeconk plan, it will go to the Township Council for a vote. "It's the next step in the process," Acropolis said. "You have to do this by state statute.We fully expect the Planning Board will pass it." Township officials have met with roughly eight redevelopers since the property was declared to be in need of redevelopment, the mayor said. "We've had people that have said, 'We'll write you a check,' " the mayor said. "We are not allowed to do that. State statute requires that in order for a piece of property to go for redevelopment status, you have to do certain things." The Foodtown site is in an environmentally and traffic-sensitive area, Acropolis said. "It was imperative that the township set some parameters regarding what the future of the site will be," he said. Township Planner Michael Fowler has said a hotel facility might be the most feasible business on the site, since Brick has no hotel facilities. Fowler said Monday the redevelopment plan needed a little tweaking after Township Attorney Jean Cipriani reviewed it recently. But the overall redevelopment plan stills calls for mixed uses on the site off Route 70, Fowler said. "We still have an eye towards a hotel being part of the project," he said. The township has received between 40 to 50 inquiries about the site since the "for sale" sign went up, Fowler said. "Not everyone has come in and met with us," he said. "Some have just said we are interested in it. People have come in with hotels and lifestyle centers, mixed uses with a residential component on the property, assisted living facilities. It's been a variety. We've been discouraging big-box retail. If there is retail, it will be more a specialtytype store." Traffic at the site will also be a consideration, Fowler said. "We're just trying not to create a mixed use that would really add to the traffic situation," he said. "Whatever goes there will generate traffic, but we'd like to have some type of balance." Fowler expects that either he or assistant planner Tara Paxton will make a presentation to the Township Council about the redevelopment plan within the next month.