Red Bank's Sunset Park Conceptual Plan Unveiled

RED BANK, NJ - The conceptual plan for the long-proposed Sunset Park includes a riverfront boardwalk, a kayak launch, a soccer field, a community garden, “sledding hills” and other amenities.

The plan, drawn up under a $47,000 site remediation contract by engineering firm T&M Associates of Middletown, was first unveiled last week in a Parks and Recreation Committee meeting.

At 8.6 acres, the site is the largest undeveloped tract in town, according to a post on redbankgreen. Situated at the western terminus of West Sunset Avenue and Drs. James Parker Boulevard in the borough’s southwest corner, it served as the town landfill for decades. It also was the site for an incinerator used to burn waste from around 1930 to 1984. The long-dormant incinerator was demolished in 2009, according to the post.

With 800 feet of Swimming River frontage, the site has never been formally named “Sunset Park” but borough officials have been working to create such a space for years to address concerned voiced by West Side residents for new open spaces and play areas for children.

A town-hall-style meeting in May revealed not every resident supports the park plan. Area residents voiced concerns that toxic waste at the dump may continue to pose a threat to health and safety. Town officials maintain that remediation measures, including the creation of a soil “cap” several feet deep, would render the site safe.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has been monitoring progress there and the next step in park development efforts is for the Parks and Recreation Committee to share the concept plan with DEP in a face-to-face meeting. The DEP has thus far covered the costs of site testing and the incinerator removal, officials have said. According to T&M engineer Christine Ballard, the cost of creating parkland would be 75-percent covered by the DEP, leaving Red Bank to fund the rest.

Mayor Pasquale Menna said at that meeting that if there’s a public consensus not to create a park on the site, “then the public has an obligation to listen to that,” according to redbankgreen.

The concept plan shows 36 parking spaces in a new lot to be created onsite. It also indicates that the town’s recycling center will remain adjacent to the property.
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Bill Kastning, executive director of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation, estimated that creating a park would cost $4 million, and said that the nonprofit is prepared to help, much as it did with the recent creation of the Springwood Avenue Park in Asbury Park.

,A view of a garbage dump, which is what the proposed parkland was in the past. Photograph by Ng Han Guan/Associated Press.