Township Celebrates Reopening Of Upper Montclair Plaza Parking Lot

Greg Matthews, chair of the Montclair Parking Authority, admitted that the repaving of the Upper Montclair Plaza parking lot took far longer than expected.

And he thanked the surrounding store owners for their patience at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday marking the reopening of the lot.

But he said construction crews ran into all sorts of unforeseen problems, forcing the project that was supposed to take about two weeks to go on for more than two months.

"There was actually an underground gas station that we found," he said. "We had to remove all these tree roots which were just a mess.

"We had to redesign a faulty drainage system," he said.

In the end, though, the project was finally completed on October 8, with new centralized parking stations replacing rows of meters.

To mark the reopening, parking will be free in the lot until Monday, November 8.

Mayor Jerry Fried also was on hand to mark the occasion Monday, as were Councilors Renee Baskerville and Nick Lewis.

"The process did go on longer than anticipated," he said. "I want to thank all of the store owners.

"But things will work better now and this is an investment in our future," he said.