Photo by Bennett Ungaro The vacant Bank of America building on Maplewood Avenue is among the properties a report recommends designating for redevelopment.
A report recommending designating a section of Maplewood village as an area in need of redevelopment will be considered by the Maplewood Planning Board in September, when the board will vote on whether to agree with the recommendation.
The report, written by Maplewood’s planning consultant Paul Grygiel of the firm Phillips Preiss Grygiel Leheny Hughes, LLC, determined that eight properties on Maplewood Avenue, Inwood Place, Durand Road and Woodland Road can qualify as a non-condemnation area in need of redevelopment. The properties include a now shuttered movie theater and the building that used to house Bank of America.
“Anyone can look at those buildings and see that they are old,” Mayor Dean Dafis said in an interview with the News-Record on July 27.
The report determines if the area qualifies for redevelopment, but Maplewood’s governing bodies will decide if they want to take that recommendation.
Dafis said the report is expected to be on the planning board’s agenda on Sept. 12; the board will be adopting a new master plan at its Aug. 8 meeting. If the planning board decides to move forward with the designation, the recommendation is sent to the Township Committee for a vote.
“All we’ve done right now is determine if the area is eligible,” Dafis said. “The governing bodies could ultimately decide, ‘No, we’re not going to redevelop that area, despite it being eligible.’”
Dafis also specified the non-condemnation designation; none of the buildings will be torn down. They won’t be developed without the owners’ involvement.
A parking lot that is owned by the town was also included in the study and would be part of the plan if it were to move forward.
“This would let us talk about what makes sense there with the owners,” Dafis said. “Many of the buildings are sidewalk facing and creating this perception of vacant properties, and we don’t want that. We want the village to be vibrant and active.”
What would ultimately go in those buildings has not been determined and won’t be for a while, but Dafis said there is potential for a reopened theater and an active use for the bank building, which Bank of America still holds a lease on. Part of the reason the report won’t be reviewed by the planning board until September is because the completed Master Plan will help board members make a decision.
“The Master Plan provides additional support for this,” Dafis said. “We want to put some guardrails in place. Eventually, someone will come in and make an offer to lease a building. If it doesn’t make sense for the area and we don’t have guardrails, we can’t do anything about it.”
Determining what is used as retail space and what is used as housing space, in addition to considering historic preservation factors.
“No one is interested in tearing down these buildings,” Dafis said. “If anything, the redeveloper could help us go after grants or help enhance the facades. That would be one of the guardrails we put in place. We don’t want anyone to be fearful something bad is happening because that’s not the case.”
The planning report is public and can be viewed online at https://tinyurl.com/tczf24nz.
Rezoning of Valley and Pierson
Maplewood considered rezoning the area at the corner of Valley Street and Pierson Road to create an overlay zone, which would allow retail to be permitted in what is mostly a residential zone. Dafis said the town decided not to move forward with the rezoning after hearing from residents about traffic concerns and the historical nature of the site. The area is home to Millstone Lawn and Garden Center, which was the original home of a wheat grinding mill important to Maplewood’s early days.
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