The Ewing Observer recently sat down with Mayor Bert Steinmann to talk about issues impacting the township, past and future.
The first part of the Q&A ran in the March issue of the Observer and addressed the issue of new leaf collection rules in town and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the township. It can also be found online at the Observer’s website at communitynews.org.
In the second part of the interview, which appears below, Steinmann talks with Observer editor Bill Sanservino about development in the Parkway Avenue redevelopment zone.
The Q&A will continue in the May issue of the paper.
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Ewing Observer: Looking at the Parkway Avenue Zone, there’s one site that’s still a big question mark, and then one that is moving pretty good. The one that’s currently under development is the former GM site—the Ewing Town Center. Can you give an update on the progress there?
Bert Steinmann: The construction has been moving very well. There was a little bit of a lull about five or six months ago when all of a sudden the supply started to dry up as far as trying to get materials onto the site.
One thing with this particular developer is that they had the foresight. They had ordered so much material in advance that they’re actually storing on site so they can continue to build.
The demand for the property is very, very, very high. And what I mean, is they have more applicants than they have units at the present time. Currently what they’re doing is that they started the live-work buildings. (Editor’s note: Live work buildings are units where the first floor is a retail business, and the residential unit for the owner is on the second level.)
They’re getting pretty close to getting that done, and phase four of this is going to come before the planning board, and that phase is all the retail. So they’re starting that absolutely. Once they start that, you’ll see a big change especially on Parkway Avenue, where the buildings are actually like maybe 20 feet or so off the road.
That’s going to happen fairly quickly. They want to get started. They’ve already got some tenants for the residential, but I can’t go into who they are at present.
The live-work units are going really well. There are more for a smaller business—maybe like a barber shop, or an ice cream shop, or some jewelry place.
Right now there’s currently 125 or 130 people that are actually living at the at Center, but they have 200 people that are already applied for. It’s really a hotbed.
EO: What’s the total capacity there?
BS: 1,100 units.
EO: Do you see that complex reaching that number of units sooner rather than later?
BS: Yes absolutely. So basically, it was going to be a 7-year buildout. I think right now they’re down to about four and a half to five years, because like I said, demand is really high.
I’ve been over there a couple of times. In fact, they had a ceremony over there for the (holiday) tree lighting and a number of people that I talk to, they love it. It’s walkable, they can go to Marrazzo’s (supermarket, located across the street from Town Center), they can walk to the senior center, and there’s a lot of activity that happens around there, and they’re planning a lot more. They’re planning concerts in the park there, all types of things, which will be open to the public. It’s really turning out well.
EO: I think once the retail gets constructed it will really help bring it together.
BS: Correct.
EO: At least that’s what we saw with the Town Center in Robbinsville. They started with the housing first there and then built the retail. I live in the development located next to Town Center, and they seem to have been able to fill the retail spaces pretty good right there.
The Robbinsville Town Center also seems to have impacted a nearby shopping center that was in bankruptcy and there were a lot of vacancies. It was bought by a new owner, and I just drove through the other day and I was shocked. Almost every storefront in that shopping center has been filled. So there’s still retail out there to fill these spaces.
BS: We have the same situation here with Suburban Square—that’s on Scotch Road and Parkway Avenue (across from Ewing Town Center).
They had a retail store that left, but what’s happening now is that Capital Health is leasing that space for doctors’ offices. So that’s what they’re currently doing. I think I have one vacancy—the old bakery.
So yeah, they’re doing really well. They were talking with us about razing that shopping center and rebuilding it, but instead they’re doing some modifications. They’re also looking to buy the bowling alley next to the center. To be quite candid with you, that was all spurred by the Town Center development, because of all those individuals that are moving in there.
And again, it’s all about a walkability. A lot of people don’t like to use their cars anymore. Not that they don’t have a car, but they like to walk.
So that’s what’s happening. As for Marrazzo’s, I talk to the owner, Sam (Marrazzo) quite frequently. His sales have gone up 20% since the project started, and it’s going to continue, because more and more people are going to move in and they like the fact that they can just walk across the street and then walk back.
So it definitely had a great impact on the retail business in that surrounding area.
EO: I know that at one point Sam Marrazzo was talking a about expanding the center, or a putting some buildings along Parkway Avenue to kind of mirror Town Center. What’s going to happen on the other side of the Town Center? Does he still have any interest in doing anything like that?
BS: He has said that he wasn’t interested in doing it anymore, but we really haven’t had any further discussions on it. Honestly, I think that once the retail goes up in Town Center, he’s probably going to rethink that situation, and he probably would want to do something, because he wants to have a combination too—like retail and rental on top.
EO: Let’s move on to the other major site in the redevelopment zone—the old Naval Air Warfare Center on Parkway Avenue, what are the current prospects or plans there?
BS: We’ve tried to market that property in any which way we possibly can. We really wanted a hotel/conference center in there, but because of it’s situation and where it’s situated, when we talk to them, they wanted an entrance from that area onto the airport, and that’s not going to happen.
So the interest was kind of lost in that so people would still have to drive around. Not that it’s far, but they couldn’t have direct access from the hotel to the to the airport going through that particular property. So that kind of went by the by the wayside
EO: Is that something that you didn’t want to do or something the county didn’t want to do.
BS: The county didn’t want to do it. Now, I’m sure that there were a lot of reasons for it, and probably mostly FAA regulations as opposed to the county, but that’s where we wound up getting a stalemate. We couldn’t do that.
Now we have a group of investors that we are currently talking to that want to put up warehousing. So we’re working through the process.
They’re proposing a total of four warehouses, if we plan it right. One is going to be 300,000 square feet, and then there’s going to be three separate warehouses, which are going to be about 30,000 square feet each, but they’re not going to look like warehousing.
Basically they’re going to mimic what the Town Center is going to look like, and all the loading of it is going to be done from the back. That way you don’t even see any tractor-trailers. You might see a box truck or whatever.
We are currently in talks with not only the developer, but the county to put in a service road so none of these tractor trailers come down the local roads. They will come off of I-295 and then right into the service road as soon as you come off the the highway onto the service road that gets you into that property, so they wouldn’t be on Bear Tavern Road or making those turns at Bear Tavern and Upper Ferry Road.
Those are the things that we’re working on, so the impact would be minimal as far as trucking is concerned.
Basically the 30,000-square-foot buildings are not going to look like a warehouse. We wanted to make sure that it’s more for like a Dick’s Sporting Goods store or things like where they store a small amount, and then they would have a box truck go from there to wherever the stores are. We’re also looking at a brew pub to go in their. Things like that.
EO: I also understand that while office space leasing costs might be going down, the per-square-foot cost on warehouses has gone up.
BS: Yes. To what extent? I don’t know, but quite significantly I believe.
EO: Along with all the warehouses that are being constructed comes a big increase in the amount of truck traffic on the roads. I have driven down some highways recently where 100 or more truckers are parked sleeping overnight near the weigh station. Is that a concern?
BS: Exactly. Obviously that’s the thing that we are going to avoid. We don’t want our citizens to be inconvenienced by tractor trailers.
We have talked to the developers about the time frame as to when trucks can come in and when they can leave. So it’s always before a certain time and then that would be it.
We’re trying to minimize that particular impact. But again, there would only be a small section of Bear Tavern Road where these tractor trailers would be coming on and then turning into the service route. It’s basically what the bypass was going to look like initially — the West Trenton bypass.
So it doesn’t mean that the service road can’t be used by individuals who aren’t going to the warehouse. They can. But again, it’s strictly designed for that type of traffic. So we don’t have them going down Bear Tavern Road.
An artist's rendering of the retail section of the Ewing Town Center.,
