Village 35 Project Gets Key Approval From Middletown Monday

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — The Middletown Township Committee meeting went into the early hours of the morning this past Monday night into Tuesday, when the Committee unanimously voted to approve a redevelopment plan on Middletown's famous "Circus Liquors" property, the Asbury Park Press reported.

The meeting went so late because so many residents showed up to speak against the project.

A developer wants to convert this property into a massive shopping center — one of the biggest in the area, completed with a Wegmans supermarket — and the Township Committee's approval of the redevelopment plan Monday night makes it much easier for National Realty Development Corp.to do that.

There will also be Toll Brothers condos built at the site, and CMX, a dine-in movie theater. The extremely controversial project is alternately called the Middletown "town center," The Shoppes at Middletown and the Village 35 project. It would be located at the intersection of Highway 35 and Kings Highway.

But many local Middletown residents are howling in protest, saying a new shopping center there will destroy one of the last few areas of open space and add more congestion to the roads.

Existing zoning already allows the developer to build up 610,000 square feet of commercial space and more than 500 new homes on the land, the APP reported.

"If it was up to me we'd have a bunch of soccer fields on the property," said Tony Fiore, deputy mayor, according to the APP. "I don't own the property and the township doesn't own the property. So all we can do ... is zoning reform."

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