RED BANK, NJ-If approved, West Side Lofts would add 110 residential units, almost 22,000 sf of retail and restaurant space and a multi-level, below-ground parking garage for almost 240 cars on 1.8 acres on the west side of the Downtown area of this Monmouth County community. Its developers have put a price tag of $45 million on the proposed project.

The developer is MW Red Bank LLC, a locally based partnership of Metrovation, the California-based Terranomics Development and the Parsippany-based Woodmont Properties. The project faces two sets of hearings before the local board of adjustment for both a use variance and site plan approval. The use variance hearing is currently scheduled for July 7. "Everything we do here with this project, we want it to have a positive impact on the community," says Christopher Cole, a partner in the project.

West Side Lofts does face issues relating to traffic and density. The site itself is located within this community's arts-and-antiques district, which features a number of antique stores and an antiques center, as well as the brand-new Two River Theater Co., a performing arts center that opened earlier this spring. The land currently contains one of those antique stores and is currently owned by Gemini Group LLC, a group headed by Robert Rechnitz, a co-founder of the theater company. Gemini has a tentative agreement to sell it to MW Red Bank LLC, although that sale is said to be contingent upon the latter getting its plan approved.

The developer has an anchor retail tenant tentatively lined up. Adam Rechnitz, son of Robert Rechnitz, has agreed to open Triumph Brewing Co., a microbrewery, within the project. It would mark his third such establishment, with existing operations in Princeton and New Hope, PA.