PENNS GROVE, NJ-State and local officials have signed off on Riverwalk, a $65- million waterfront mixed-use project proposed by local developer George Kearns III. Kearns expects to be under construction later this spring and to have the retail component open by the summer of 2006.

The project encompasses 26 acres along the Delaware River in this Salem County community, with about half of that acreage in the form of an island that would be connected to the mainland by a pier. According to Kearns, the retail component of 38 stores would be mixed with several restaurants and a 58-key hotel. He has also signed a deal with chef Martin C.J. Mongiello, executive chef at Camp David during the Clinton Administration, to operate the restaurants and hotel.

Riverwalk was once owned by actor Bruce Willis, a native of this South Jersey community, who proposed a similar project in 1995. But two years later, after failing to get the necessary approvals, Willis dropped the project. Kearns bought the site, which is largely empty except for a vacant bank building and a handful of run-down houses, in 2000.

Besides approvals from state and local officials in New Jersey, the project also required approvals from the State of Delaware. Owing to an unusual Colonial-era agreement, a portion of the border between the two states is literally the New Jersey shoreline. Because the island portion of the site is technically in Delaware waters, officials of that state had to approve it.

And because that portion of the project is in Delaware waters, Kearns hopes to anchor a small floating casino off the pier. Gaming establishments are illegal in New Jersey anywhere but Atlantic City. But Gregory Patterson, a spokesman for Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, says that his state is unlikely to approve the casino. In any event, Kearns has gotten $2 million in state and federal assistance to jumpstart the rest of the Riverwalk project.