MILLSTONE – An applicant is seeking permission to amend a plan for a warehouse that was previously approved by the Millstone Township Planning Board.
XXIII Associates/River Center, LLC seeks to amend an application for the construction of a warehouse on Old Route 33 and Farrington Boulevard that received preliminary and final site plan approval in 2014. The proposed changes would make the warehouse smaller, possibly with multiple tenants.
Representatives of the applicant appeared before the Planning Board on Aug. 9 to receive guidance for the amendments in an informal application.
The company’s representatives contacted Township Engineer Matt Shafai to receive administrative approval for the amendments, which would allow the changes to occur without an appearance before the Planning Board.
The informal application was made on the advice of board attorney Michael Steib to allow the board members to decide if the amendments constituted an administrative approval, and was presented by attorney Bill Mehr.
Board members voted to have XXIII Associates/River Center, LLC reappear with an amended application.
The approved application was for a 94,500-square-foot warehouse/storage area, an 8,000-square-foot showroom/administrative offices, 44 parking spaces, a single tenant and two entrances on Farrington Boulevard.
According to the applicant’s representatives and to Steib, the proposed amendments will reduce the warehouse/storage area to 84,000 square feet, reduce the offices to 3,000 square feet, reduce the parking spaces to 41, allow multiple tenants and reduce the entrances to one.
Steib informed the board that XXIII Associates/River Center, LLC has been advised by real estate professionals that there is no demand for a single tenant building and he said the building was required to be scaled down by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection due to its wastewater management plan.
Although Mehr reasoned that the reduction of the building’s size was a benefit of the amendments, members of the board were concerned about the amended application’s potential impact on traffic due to an increase in loading spaces and having only one entrance.
To address those concerns, the board members requested that the company submit a traffic study.
“I don’t care if you go administrative or a whole new application,” said Mayor Michael Kuczinski, who sits on the board. “Until I see that traffic study, I would be against the whole thing. To me, that traffic study is paramount to the whole thing.”
Ultimately, as Mehr noted that the amended site plan was complete, the board voted to have the amended site plan submitted and presented with a traffic study. The applicant’s representatives agreed to return for a future hearing.
No date was set for XXIII Associates/River Center, LLC’s next appearance before the Planning Board.
