500,000-SF Center Plan Moves Forward

MANALAPAN, NJ-This township's planning board by a 7-to-2 vote has given preliminary approval for the Village at Manalapan, a 500,000-sf shopping complex proposed for a site along Route 33 here. The developer is Manalapan Retail Realty Partners, a group managed by RJ Brunelli & Co. of Old Bridge.

This is a scaled-back version of an earlier "vision plan" that encompassed more than 800,000 sf. The proposal has been before the planning board since early 2005. The way the site plan stands right now--pending state and Monmouth County approvals--the project would encompass 21 retail buildings; six restaurants; a bank; supermarket; health club; two two-story retail/office buildings and a child care center. The earlier version included 274 residential units, a tennis club, performing arts center and a multiplex theater, among other things.

Project attorney John Giunco told planning board members that with the site plan as it stands, the developer was not asking for any variances and had received approvals from appropriate municipal agencies. Manalapan Mayor Drew Shapiro told the board, "You can't vote no on this application anyway. It we voted no on it, it would be overturned in court."

As far as state and county approvals, "we have gotten a lot of the applications in and have to follow through on those, but the Department of Smart Growth has recognized our project as having the potential to be a case study," Richard Brunelli, president of RJ Brunelli & Co., tells GlobeSt.com. "We went through great expense to revise our plans to create a type of site plan that conforms. The project was redesigned three times and may change again."

One of the most contentious points has been traffic, and specifically access to Route 33. "We are putting in more than $3 million of off-site improvements for making the road system better there," Brunelli says. "We're not asking any governmental authorities for any off-site improvements. We're carrying it alone, we're anxious to get going and when we're finished, the traffic situation, with the project in place, will be better than it is now without it."

And even without the residential component, which would have been situated on upper stories above the retail, the Village at Manalapan will have plenty of residential support. Some 2,500 homes are rising in various projects around the site, with about half of those already finished or under construction, according to Brunelli, and the rest slated to be in place by 2008 or 2009.

As far as timing, pending state and county approvals, "the best case scenario would be to break ground in late summer," Brunelli tells GlobeSt.com. "If we can do that, we can deliver stores by early next summer leading to a grand opening in the fall of 2007. We're optimistic."