After sitting dormant for 19 years, the rear section of the Ellsworth Center is expected to open for business in as little as two to three months, according to a representative of the owners.##M:[more]##
The Planning Board granted Pereira Investments the long-awaited permission to occupy the center in January, and the company wasted no time in seeking tenants. According to Anthony Miranda, the consultant hired to broker the leases, interested parties have wasted no time in securing the spaces. Mirandi says no leases have been signed yet, since the company has not yet been issued building permits. The township is due to meet with the owners to evaluate the building’s condition next week.
Mirandi did not disclose the specific businesses looking to lease the spaces, since no deals will be made official until the permits have been issued. “We’ve had interest from restaurants, a day care center, paint store, grocery store, pizza parlor, and a computer center for the retail sites. We’ve also had interest in the office sites,” said Mirandi.
Ivar Johnson of Bristle Brothers Paint Store confirmed Mirandi’s comments, and said his company is one of those considering a move to the center. “He told us this week that the smaller building is already rented out. We’re considering moving to the larger in seven months when it is ready.”
Bristle Brothers, currently at 41 Princeton-Hightstown Road, is looking for a new location in the area due to pressure from its landlord. The store has a five-year lease on its current spot, but the owners have plans to demolish the strip mall currently standing there and build a Rite-Aid pharmacy and another “village-style” strip mall.
Johnson said the owners will most likely buy out the lease or move the businesses in the strip mall to a new location. The Ellsworth Center, 150 yards to the northwest, is a logical move for those businesses, which include Chicken Holiday and Domino’s Pizza.
The Ellsworth Center sites will be leased at $22 per square foot per year, plus unspecified charges for maintenance and tax, according to Mirandi. The site includes two buildings and a total of 167,”706 square feet. Only the smaller building would be ready to open in three months. The larger of the two was not as close to completion before the project was halted. Bringing that building up to code will take eight months to a year, according to Mirandi.
The site is 3.85 acres total, and is located behind the section of the Ellsworth center which has been fully leased and functioning for twenty years.
Jacinto Rodrigues, principal for Sumo Enterprises, the parent company for Pereira investments said last August he spent “a couple million dollars” and had tenants lined up for the commercial center when he bought into the project many years ago. Construction began in 1988, the retail spaces had been leased, and the shopping center on the adjacent property was completed, when he says he was told by the township he wouldn’t be issued a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) unless he helped finance improvements for the intersection, which is adjacent to the Princeton Junction Train Station.
He said, “We tried to come up with a plan for the intersection and the widening of the road, but the town and the county and the state couldn’t agree on what to do. After that, we never did anything. It has always been my position that that doesn’t apply to my project anyway.”
At a hearing in January, the Planning Board ruled that his part of those improvements amounts to $41,”000 for the off-tract improvements. The county will give Pereira a credit for the $28,”000 the company paid for plans for the intersection. According to township engineer James Parvesse, the project will cost approximately $260,”000. There is currently no plan or timeline for the widening of the intersection, but Rodriguez is now free to complete construction and obtain a CO.
Since the planning board’s decision to allow the company to move forward with leasing the two buildings, the owners have cracked down on the illegal parking at the site. The lot that once regularly had over twenty cars in its lot, presumable left by commuters without parking passes, is now chained off.
