Shopping Center Construction Planned for Overnight Hours

With plans already approved for an overhaul of the Somerset Shopping Center, representatives spoke before the Bedminster Township Committee recently about using the overnight hours for milling and paving of the parking lot.

The application includes a 1,600-square-foot addition and the opening of a Fresh Market. It will also require a change of the entire storefront of the shopping center, as well as changes to the parking lot and more.

Under a developer’s agreement that the committee was considering, all construction was to be done between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, and 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on the weekends.

But representatives requested to be able to do milling and paving in the overnight hours, following the closing of the shopping center, Monday through Thursday.

The plans are for the shopping center to be open and fully renovated by Thanksgiving, but the biggest concern with regard to the milling and paving was safety. Representatives said they wanted to focus on that work when there wouldn’t be drivers and other shoppers in the parking lot around the heavy machines required for the work to be done.

The representatives proposed that the evening work be allowed with the restrictions that work does not take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and work will not be done on more than five days.

The plan is currently for the initial milling and base to be done on two to three nights in August, with the final top course taken care of toward the end of the project, around October.

Contractors do nine-hour shifts, normally beginning around 9 p.m. and lasting until about 6 a.m. It usually takes about two hours to set up, five hours to do work and two more to clean up.

But members of the committee were concerned about the possibility for noise from the work being done.

“As anyone in town knows, they’ve seen how Route 206 has been done overnight, and that’s a milling and paving job,” Mayor Steve Parker said. “There’s people living right behind it.”

Parker asked if there is any way to do any of the work during the day to eliminate some of the possible noise in the evenings.

“All open businesses are on the west side of the parking lot,” he said. “Any opportunity during the day to do some of it, at least get some of the work done during the day?”

Parker said that when other requests have come in for overnight work, the township has allowed it to go until about 11 p.m. or midnight.

But the representatives with the center said they can’t begin until the center closes. Dunkin Donuts is the last to close, around 9 p.m., but the crowd usually thins by about 7 p.m. when the other stores close, so they could begin around then.

But committeeman Lawrence Jacobs said he is especially concerned about the work being done in the parking lot in the back of the property because it backs up to Pluckemin Park.

“I do not want to see the lights of milling next to Pluckemin Park during the overnight hours,” he said.

Representatives agreed that they would work on the parking lot at the back of the building, near the residents at Pluckemin Park, during the more normal hours of 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and the front of the parking lot would be done during the overnight hours.