Foodtown Site Plan Awaiting County Approval: Brick Mayor

BRICK, NJ — It's one of the most frequent questions Brick Township Mayor John G. Ducey gets during his bimonthly Facebook Live sessions: What's happening with the former Foodtown site?

Still waiting for approvals, Ducey said Tuesday, after a resident asked about the status of the site, which is an expanse of cracking parking lot that sits along Route 70 and is bounded by Forge Pond on its other edge.

The plan for the complex, which was approved in March 2019, is sitting at the Ocean County Planning Board, which has requested another traffic study, Ducey said. He said a traffic engineer provided a traffic study to the state Department of Transportation for the complex, and received the state DOT's approval.

The state Department of Environmental Protection also sought a traffic study as part of the permitting for the Coastal Areas Facility Review Act process. The state approved the CAFRA permit in November, Ducey said.

"We were hopeful of being able to close by the end of 2020," he said, but the county planning board's request for a traffic study has delayed that.

"Then there's an outfall approval from NJDOT, a waterfront development permit from DEP" that are needed before the township can take its final actions, including an approval for the closing by Brick Township and a final look by the township Planning Board.

The slow movement of the permitting process clearly has frustrated Ducey, who has made getting the property out of township hands and back on the tax rolls one of his priorities since he was elected mayor in 2013.

The site plan for the complex proposed by HFZ Superdome LLC, initially was presented to the public at a Brick Township Council meeting in May 2017.

The plan calls for a 68,400-square-foot domed facility with sports fields inside, a 27,600-square-foot basketball center, a 13,440-square-foot two-story building that will include offices and other facilities, and a pair of outdoor beach volleyball courts. The retail portion of the site, owned by M&M Realty but presented as one plan by HFZ Superdome, includes a pad for a 4,300-square-foot restaurant with a drive-through, a 6,400-square-foot retail building and a nearly 23,000-square-foot retail building. There will be 388 parking spaces total on the site.

HFZ Sportsdome is paying for the permits and their associated costs in part of the sale of the property to the sportsdome company and to M&M Realty. The sale cannot be completed until the permits are in place. Once all are in place, the sale can be finalized, getting it back onto the township's tax rolls.

Click here to get Patch email notifications, or download our app to have breaking news alerts sent right to your phone. Have a news tip? Email karen.wall@patch.com Follow Brick Patch on Facebook.