Six-Story Hotel In Red Bank Moves Closer To Reality

RED BANK, NJ - Officials this week authorized the approval of a developer's agreement for the construction of a 76-room, six-story hotel at 80 Rector Place.

The Planning Board last month authorized the construction after a lengthy and litigious history, finally granting RBank Capital LLC’s application for preliminary and final major site plan approval with bulk C variances.

The Planning Board required RBank Capital to enter into a developer’s agreement with the borough "to ensure the proper, appropriate and timely completion and maintenance of the improvements that are the subject of the approvals and the site plan," according to the municipal agreement for the likely Hampton Inn.

According to redbankgreen, planners would not sign off on the project until builder Larry Cohen agreed he would not seek state Department of Transportation approval to create a turning lane to allow vehicles heading northbound on Route 35 to make a left turn into the hotel, the site of a long-vacant Exxon station.

Ron Gasiorowski, an attorney hired by a competing business hotel to fight the plan, produced a traffic expert and a planner who both predicting crashes resulting from that plan.

Board member and retiring borough Administrator Stanley J. Sickels warned the board that eliminating the turn lane would not stop motorists from waiting to cross several lanes of southbound traffic, even without an official turning lane, creating problems with vehicles waiting in the northbound lanes of the highway.

.The hotel proposal still requires state approvals. Image via Shutterstock.