Somerset Development Wins Another Town Center

ABERDEEN, NJ-Somerset Development got its second green light for a major Town Center development in New Jersey in a week, as Aberdeen planning authorities approved a site plan for housing, retail space, a hotel and a movie theater.

Nine years in the planning by Somerset, the 500-unit “neighborhood” is to go up on the site of the former Anchor Glass factory site. The  existing buildings will be demolished – in contrast to the other Town Center project given final approval last week, at the “Bell Labs” site in Holmdel, where Eero Saaronsen's 50-year-old office building will be preserved. (Read more on that project here.)

However, Somerset president Ralph Zucker tells GlobeSt.com, the factory's three tall smoke stacks will be preserved as part of a park on the 50-acre Aberdeen property, giving it “a true sense of place and history.”

Lakewood-based Somerset purchased the Aberdeen site in 2004. It had first expressed interest in the historic and architecturally distinguished Bell Labs building site in 2007, after Alcatel-Lucent had closed it and put it on the market. 

In Aberdeen, the original redevelopment plan was for a 1,000-unit Town Center development, contingent on construction of a new highway ramp that never obtained final approval. The plan had to be re-tooled, and also it simply takes a long time, Zucker says he has learned, to “have governing bodies understand our vision, and for communities to process the concern about change.”

The brownfield site will require some clean-up, Zucker says, but he said it was "unusually clean" for a former factory site.

The  residential units at the site will include 110 "affordable" rental apartments, with 390 market-rate units to be divided between for-sale and rental units.

In Holmdel, Somerset pursued its Town Center idea for years through community meetings, planning meetings, redesigns and concessions. It won final site plan approval July 31. The Aberdeen Township Planning Board approved the "Glassworks" project Wednesday evening - unanimously - after the addition of the 110-room hotel to the project and other features requested by town leaders, Zucker said.

He said there are moments of frustration in the marathon process of getting such projects approved, but they are washed away by the excitement of getting site approval.

“We tend to be attracted to the more challenging sites," he says. "We make our living with the challenging projects. It makes what we do unique and special."