Market changes reshape Red Bank’s downtown

BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY staff Classic Garage, 21 Monmouth St., Red Bank, will be closing its doors this year after eight years in business.

The changing face of Red Bank is reflected in each painting created by Lloyd Garrison for his popular Christmas card series.

"In every painting I’ve done of Red Bank, things have changed. You can’t do the same painting twice," observed Garrison, whose annual holiday cards feature a seasonal Red Bank street scene.

Garrison’s 2003 holiday card says it best. It is a painting of a family peering into the window of Prown’s, a Broad Street mainstay that closed its doors this year.

The scenario will be repeated next year as changes major and minor continue to reshape the downtown, including redevelopment plans for the Kislin’s building on East Front Street, a new owner at the Downtown Cafe on West Front, and the closing of Classic Garage, Red Bank’s homage to vintage autos, on Monmouth Street.

The Red Bank Sleep Shoppe is moving from its spot on Broad Street to this building on Maple Avenue.

Together with other changes — new businesses moving in, established businesses leaving, and the sale of some downtown buildings — the developments are seen as indicators that the business district is viable and continuing to evolve.

"Change is in the air," said commercial broker Geoff Brothers. "It’s a great time for the town. No one can dictate where it will go. Markets evolve and we’re in the process of an evolving market. We’re all participating in it and all have a little say in where it goes, but none of us controls it."

"From a free market standpoint, the market is what the market is. It’s just evolution," said Red Bank retailer and pundit David Prown, who maintains doomsayers predicting the demise of the downtown are wrong.

"Some say Red Bank is going to crash. It will not," he said. "I think there are too many strong anchors here — a beautiful river, a hospital, transportation, that sort of infrastructure. In a downturn, it will go down, but it won’t disappear because the market will adjust."

From old-timers like Kislin’s, which had been in business in Red Bank for 90 years, to newcomers like Red, entrepreneurs are showing a common interest in reinvesting in the town.

Plans to redevelop the Kislin’s building along East Front Street call for renovations to the 26,000-square-foot sporting goods store to create a mixed-use building with retail and residential space. Presently, with retail on the first level and storage above, renovations to the brick building would update retail space on the first floor and create 10 two-bedroom apartments on the second and third floors. The Red Bank Planning Board will begin hearings on the application by the Pinsley family on Monday.

"We don’t know what we’re going to do yet," said Daniel Lynch about negotiations to purchase the Downtown Cafe at 8 W. Front St. "We’re looking forward to getting the deal done. It will be great for the town."

Lynch, co-owner of new downtown hot spot, Red, 3-5 Broad St., confirmed that he and partner Matthew Wagman are in contract negotiations to purchase the Downtown Cafe from Pat Nulle.

With their slick new eatery an instant hit, the partners are ready to take on another Red Bank location.

Lynch said renovations would be extensive but would be "in keeping with what’s there now, a restaurant with a music venue."

"People think of it as a bar, but it’s been a restaurant for as long as I can remember," Lynch said.

There’s no name yet for the new venture, which will cater to a different crowd than Red, he said.

"The focus will be almost the total opposite of Red. The target market will be more casual, more laid back, and the menu will have a lower price point."

A few doors down, a new restaurant has added another accent to the borough’s array of international eateries. El Salvadoreño opened at 38 W. Front St., the former site of the River’s Edge Cafe, and is doing brisk business, according to owner Edward Bennett.

Mattress maven Stuart Paer didn’t expect to move his thriving bedding store to 59 Maple Ave., but that’s what is happening.

"I always wanted to open a clearance center," said Paer this week, explaining that he picked the corner of Maple Avenue and Gold Street (briefly Horseman Antiques) for that offshoot.

Paer’s plan was that the Red Bank Sleep Shoppe would remain at 25 Broad, a building he recently purchased from Garrison, whose studio will remain on the upper floor.

No sooner had Paer come up with a plan, than he was approached by upscale French antique furniture dealer Markline Home Inc. for his spot on Broad. Paer struck a deal and will move the sleep shop over to Maple Avenue by early November, he said this week. The new location on busy Route 35 will give him high visibility, he said.

Paer’s enthusiasm about Red Bank is apparent in his decision to invest in the town.

"I’m so pro-Red Bank. This town is such a great town for business, if you have any business sense and you know a little," he said. "There’s a lot of business in town. You have to keep working hard. We get all of Monmouth County and surrounding areas and people come here for day trips."

Other investors apparently agree. Informed sources confirmed that the Restoration Hardware building at 52 Broad St. recently sold to North Jersey investment group Thor Equities for $6.2 million, and Brothers said the Classic Garage property at Monmouth and West streets, assessed at $368,400, is on the market for purchase at $1.5 million, or for lease at $6,000 per month. Also on the market is 9 Broad St. while 20 Broad recently changed hands.

Rates for space on Broad continue to climb, and are hovering around $30 per square foot at this time, brokers and landlords confirmed this week, and a few property owners are pushing that limit by asking as high as $50 per square foot. On side streets like Monmouth, rates tend to be significantly less.

"The retail market is voracious," said Brothers, while the market for office space has softened and the trend for upper stories is to residential conversion.

"There are a lot of towns in north Jersey where rents are significantly higher, like Princeton and Westfield," noted Chris Cole, managing partner of major downtown landlord Terranomics.

While landlords are the beneficiaries, some, particularly those with a long-term presence in the downtown, have reservations about the levels rates are reaching, Brothers noted.

"What’s interesting is that a lot of old-school landlords in town really take exception to the higher rents," Brothers said. "They say, ‘You can’t charge that for space. That’s not fair.’ But there are newer landlords charging $50 a square foot. They have come new to the game and they bring a whole new way of playing to the field. It has definitely affected the market."

"We try to work with small merchants in our properties," said Frederick "Pat" Straus, a principal in The Ten Co., a major downtown landlord which owns the Victorian Courtyard properties at 30 Monmouth St. and other downtown holdings. Ten Co. is in contract negotiations for the sale of the Dublin House.

Two Ten Co. properties on Broad Street are currently being renovated by new tenants.

No sooner had Hinck’s Turkey Farm moved out of 45 Broad, than the new owner of a Russian/Armenian restaurant modeled after New York’s Russian Tea Room was busy renovating the space for an Oct. 1 opening. According to Igor Khalatian, the eatery will be open for continental breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Amenities at the Everest Cafe will include a coffee and pastry bar and counter service. Next door at 47 Broad, confectioner Old Monmouth Candies, in Freehold since the 1930s, expects to open its first satellite store in time for the holiday season.

Across Broad, at No. 24, members of the Hendrickson family are rearranging things at Firehouse Specialties to make way for a new enterprise — The Bees Knees, which will open Oct. 25. Owned by best friends Kristin Hendrickson Winters, Rumson, and Meghan O’Neill, Fair Haven, the women’s boutique will be devoted to casual, preppy labels. Lily Pulitzer will occupy the front part of the store while the sportswear line of Jersey Shore Apparel Co., owned by Chuck and David Hendrickson, will move to the rear.

The low-price niche of west side retailer JJ’s Annex, 123 Shrewsbury Ave., has paid off. The old-fashioned variety store has done so well in the four months since its founding that owner Irwin Katz is opening an annex at 102 Shrewsbury next to the post office. JJ’s homewares inventory will be expanded at the original location and the annex will be devoted to clothing and accessories.

Add to all the activity in the downtown the rumor factor, which has it that New York’s hip confectionery Dylan’s Candy Bar is a contender for the spot vacated by Prown’s at 32 Broad. There’s buzz also that Stone Cold Creamery, specialty ice cream store, is poised to move into a spot on Broad when the lease held by an established business runs out.

The current climate doesn’t bode well for all retailers; several businesses are on the market, and others are closing their doors.

"There’s definitely a shakeout," Brothers said. "A lot of retailers in business now won’t be in business in the future. It’s not just rising rents. The market has changed. We’re becoming much more specialized and much more of a destination."

Classic Garage is one of those, and owner Rick Stoeber said he will close the vintage car customizing shop at 120 Monmouth St. at the end of the month after eight years. Stoeber attributes the demise of his custom car business to the prolonged economic downturn, which has put a dent in his clients’ discretionary income.

But for every business shuttered, Cole said there is a line of retailers waiting to get into town.

And, Prown sees a new breed of downtown entrepreneurs like Paer, who have what it takes to succeed in a high-rent, highly competitive retail climate.

"To survive today in any business you need to be a little more savvy," Prown said, "to think like an entrepreneur. They’re making things happen."

"I bought this building because I believe in the town," said Paer. "I’m in."