BRICK, NJ-After an 18-month delay, construction will finallycommence for the Marketplace at Brick, a 288,000-sf shopping centeron Route 70 here. “We anticipate starting construction within thenext 30 to 60 days,” says Joe Morris, VP of leasing for Piscataway,NJ-based Edgewood Properties. Edgewood subsidiary JSM at Brick LLCis the developer, and Morris notes that major tenants will be ableto move in sometime in 2008.

JSM at Brick received final approvals for theproject in 2005, but the project stalled when the New JerseyDepartment of Transportation expressed concerned about the possibleincrease in traffic on Route 70. “It was the DOT's concern thatthere would be a lot of traffic and that the site as it wasconfigured, was problematic,” Morris says.

JSM solved the problem by obtaining access to neighboringShorrock St. and building an access road between the shoppingcenter and Shorrock. “Shorrock was a key issue for DOT because thateliminated the need to reconfigure the existing traffic signal atRoute 70,” Morris says. “It alleviated some of the pressure on thatintersection by allowing pedestrians to access the site viaShorrock.”