Brick Township officials have approved the construction of a new office building along a busy stretch of highway in town, adjacent to a longtime day care center and preschool.
The township’s planning board approved an application by Brick Towers Holdings LLC to develop the property at 1454 Route 88, next to the Honeytree Daycare Center. According to a board filing by township planner Tara Paxton, the parcel was once legally connected to the daycare center, but was sold and is now in the hands of the developer. The building also shares a border with the Lakewood Manor residential development, and is located across the street from an apartment complex and another office building.
The 1.1-acre lot, now vacant except for some remaining recreational equipment, was subdivided from the main parcel in 1996 to create a restaurant called The Courtyard, which no longer exists, Paxton’s report said.
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Attorney John Jackson, representing the developer, described the proposal as a “new, contemporary-designed two-story office building” that would be accompanied by drainage and aesthetic improvements along the highway.
Plans call for the building to have its mechanicals located on the rooftop rather than ground-level, with two signs – one monument sign and one backlit sign – that comply with the township’s zoning code. Lighting is proposed around the perimeter both for safety and aesthetics, which will be capped so as not to disturb neighboring properties. The building will be gray and black with an aluminum design look, with a weather-proof wooden veneer on the front.
The planning board required specific guarantees that the lighting associated with the building would not disturb nearby residential homes. A six-foot vinyl fence will separate the office building from the adjacent school, and a trash receptacle would be shielded from view.
A separate report from the township’s traffic consultant found that the new use of the property – the same property owners owns separate medical office buildings further up Route 88 – would generate 32 trips in and out at the peak morning hour and 33 trips during the peak evening hour.
The building will be accessed from Route 88.