TOMS RIVER – If you drive around town lately, you’ll see construction on commercial lots on major roads.
Whether it’s the large bank on Hooper, or some spots along Route 37 or Lakehurst Road, there are businesses moving in or growing. That’s a good sign for the economy, officials said. It means that businesses want to invest in Toms River.
There has been interest by commercial entities coming into the township, said David Roberts, the town planner. “The Planning Board over the past year has approved a number of commercial site plans, including an 8,000-square-foot studio and administrative offices for Susan Strauss Interior Design on Route 9, an 86,000-square-foot medical services building on Route 37 at St. Catherine Boulevard and a self-storage facility in the Toms River Industrial park of 120,582 square feet with frontage on Route 37 and Corporate Circle. Site plans in the pipeline include a 79-room hotel on the current site of the Parkway (Americana) Motel (off Route 9) and a small retail center at Hooper Avenue near Church Street.”
At a recent Planning Board meeting, a plan was approved to convert the former Bank Of America at Hooper and Oak Avenues to a Starbucks with drive-thru and an outdoor patio, he said.
The framework of a huge building can be seen adjacent to OceanFirst bank on Hooper Avenue. That’s going to be a seven-story, 98-foot tall addition to the current bank. The new square footage was expected to be 79,405.
The bank has been in that location since 1996 but needed extra physical space to keep up with the company’s growth.
The corner of Route 9 and Bay Avenue used to have three gas stations. Now there is just one. One corner became a convenience store recently. Drivers might have noticed a new building going up on the southeast corner. That’s going to be a Goodwill, township officials said.
Another small piece of property that’s going to be doing a lot of traffic is on Route 37 west. It will be on the other side of Tanager Drive from a diner. This is the future location of a Dunkin’ Donuts.
On the other side of the road, heading east on Route 37 (but still west of the Parkway), a plot of land was being cleared recently. It’s between Life Storage and Burger King. This will be an AutoZone.
Route 37 will also see a new Dollar General and a reconstruction of an expanded Bandwagon Restaurant.
On Lakehurst Drive, Ocean Surgery Center was knocked down. This is going to be replaced by another medical building, as Lakehurst Road is mostly zoned for that kind of business.
The town has two volunteer boards that oversee development in town. An overly simplified description of them follows: The Zoning Board handles what kind of business can go where; for example a doctor’s office would need to ask permission to open in a place not zoned for medical. The Planning Board handles how it is going to be constructed.
When K-Mart went out of business nationwide, it left a large hole in a shopping center on 37. It was later replaced by a new Floor & Décor, which opened in 2020.
The town expedited the process of getting Floor & Décor to open by allowing them to go through the Zoning Board for a permit rather than the more lengthy Planning Board process because the only changes to the outside were cosmetic, Roberts said. That allowed them to renovate the interior and open more quickly.
Still, there are some empty storefronts in town. A grocery store on Fischer Boulevard remains empty. A sign on it posted by the property owner states that they are open to other options than a grocery store. There is competition down the street in the form of a large ShopRite. The owner, Jeffery Realty, has also been working to breathe new life into the Baywick Plaza, a similar shopping center on Route 9 in Bayville.
The Foodtown next to Kohl’s on Route 37 remains empty, also facing competition from a ShopRite across the highway and Stop N Shop down the road.
The township Planning Board approved a sign variance for the old Foodtown so that it could make a higher sign. This is because the wooded areas near the Parkway have grown to the point where they block the view and people won’t know what’s in there, Roberts said. To date, the owners have not found a tenant or built a higher sign.
“My concern is the restaurants that suffered during the closure due to the pandemic. We lost a number of them,” Mayor Maurice Hill said. “I am hopeful other restaurants will take over the sites once everything opens up. This pandemic has had economic and social impacts on everyone, not just businesses.”
