Developer gets OK to convert 4th Ave. Pavilion into sales office Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 03/1/07 BY NANCY SHIELDS COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU
ASBURY PARK Metro Homes, the third developer building condominiums on the beachfront, received approval from city planners this week to recast the Fourth Avenue Pavilion into a temporary, possibly eye- catching sales office for the Esperanza high-rise as it is built during the next 18 months. Dean Geibel, president of Hoboken-based Metro Homes, said he initially planned to have a sales office a few blocks off the beach in the Asbury Grand. But now he wants it next to the building site, and Metro is going to lease 5,000 square feet or about one-third of the space at the north end of the Fourth Avenue Pavilion on the boardwalk. Asbury Partners, the city's master developer, which has brought in builders and developers for different residential, retail and entertainment projects, owns the pavilion and will rent that space at the north end to Metro Homes. "We don't want to miss the spring market," Geibel said, adding that Metro has to have its office open "in 60 days to catch people when they're coming down." Planners approved Metro's plans to use the pavilion and temporarily change the exterior to resemble the design of the Esperanza. The Esperanza is planned for the Ocean Avenue site of the former building shell known as C-8 on planning maps. Donald Sammet, the city's director of planning and redevelopment, on Wednesday described the new look of the pavilion as a building wrap that will be installed over scaffolding placed around the perimeter of the two-story pavilion. The wrap will be about 35 feet high, Geibel said. Metro also received approval to place large advertising signs on the north and south ends of the pavilion building. The pavilion houses Asbury Partners' offices and formerly housed the offices and sales center of Joseph Carabetta, the Connecticut builder who tried but failed to develop the beachfront. Geibel said Metro Homes wants to have the sales center open in 60 days. He said the pilings are finished on the Esperanza site bound by Ocean, Third and Fourth avenues and Kingsley Street. Concrete will be poured, and the building with two towers that reach 10 and 16 stories will start to come out of the ground, he said. "I'm very excited about the quality of this project," commented Steven Troy, a planning board member, at Monday night's meeting. "It will be tremendous for the city." Metro Homes appeared the same night city planners gave Madison Marquette, the entertainment and retail developer, approval to begin work on a new restaurant in the vacant Howard Johnson's in the Fifth Avenue Pavilion. The restaurant is to open by Memorial Day. Madison Marquette is leading a joint venture with Asbury Partners to develop the entertainment and retail portion of the waterfront the next three to five years. One of the first projects Madison Marquette would like to complete, city officials have said, is the renovation of the Casino and rebuilding of the Casino's eastern portion which was torn down this winter after many years of non-use and disrepair. Madison Marquette has proposed transforming the Casino into a specialty food market and restaurant center, possibly similar to San Francisco's Ferry Building. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/lOt0.A/hOaOAA/yQLSAA/Y2tolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
