Flemington's mayor-elect urges delay on North Main Street redevelopment plan
FLEMINGTON – Despite opposition by the mayor-elect, the Borough Council has unanimously approved an amended redevelopment plan for the Guitar Boy site on North Main Street.
The plan for the corner of North Main Street and Park Avenue calls for 11 townhouses on North Main Street and 100 apartments, 4,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space with an outdoor terrace and 5,600 square feet of amenities with public access to a park. The plan also includes a small amount of retail space.
The property is known as the Guitar Boy site because of the mural on the building that greets people coming into the borough from Route 31.
The development, proposed by Cardinal Capital Management, will be part of the northern gateway to downtown Flemington and will be across North Main Street from the approved Captiva Main Street plan to redevelop the former Agway site with 100 apartments. A minimum of 15% of the units will be designated as affordable housing.
But Marcia Karrow, who turned away Mayor Betsy Driver's reelection bid last month, cautioned the Borough Council before Monday's vote not to "rush through" a decision before the end of the year and when she is sworn into a four-year term next month.
"You may regret pushing something through at the end of this year," Karrow told the council.
The council should have received more feedback from Park Avenue residents whom, she said, are faced with the prospect of a five-story building in their neighborhood.
While residents of the development will have a view of a "parklet," Karrow said, neighbors will be "losing hours and hours and hours of sunlight."
Neither Driver nor any council member responded to Karrow.
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The vote was necessary because Cardinal Capital Management's proposal was not part of the original redevelopment plan adopted in January 2017 that included both the Guitar Boy site and the property across the street that was once the home of the Agway store.
The amended redevelopment plan will be forwarded to the borough Planning Board for review before it returns to the Borough Council for a final vote on Dec. 12.
Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com
Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Flemington mayor-elect urges delay on Main Street redevelopment
