The Red Bank Business Alliance (RBBA) is a group of Red Bank business owners founded with the purpose of enhancing the vibrancy of Red Bank as a destination for shopping, dining and entertainment. The RBBA is an active and instrumental partner in the Community whose objective is to enrich the “Red Bank Experience”. RBBA has teamed up with The Red Bank River Center, The Red Bank Borough Council, and Borough Residents to make Red Bank everyone’s “First Choice to work, shop, dine, play and reside.

On February 6, 2017, RBBA held a Town Hall meeting to aide in providing information and understanding of the issues of parking in Red Bank, and the impact it has on the business community.

There are countless news articles and media going back at least to the 1920’s discussing parking problems in Red Bank. However, the boom of the downtown area starting in the 1980’s increased the pressure for a long term parking solution. Many studies and multiple Master Plans paid for by the Borough over many years all point towards a significant parking deficiency. The parking shortfall numbers are anywhere from 300 to 1200 spaces depending on the study or Master Plan. While there has been questions of the data used to determine the need for additional parking, all of those studies are available for the residents to review.

The parking is currently at an all-time pressure level. Many factors are contributing to this parking demand:

•There’s been a parking fee moratorium in effect since the recession. The intention of this was to encourage occupancy in vacant spaces with a parking deficiency while removing an economic constraint of the Land Use Ordinance.

• While Red Bank still has vacancies in the business district, it is still a very desirable place to locate a business.

•Count Basie Theater is more successful than ever, thus holding more shows.

•Red Bank Catholic built an athletic center without requirement to replace spaces eliminated for its construction. While they have created some additional spaces adjacent to their primary parking lot, and utilize the private parking lot at the corner of Maple and Monmouth, their student body continues to impact the daily use of the White Street lot. For example: A parking lot previously accommodated by a joint venture of the Red Bank RiverCenter, RBC and the Christian Science Church came to an end sending those students parking elsewhere into the public lots.

•Meridian/Riverview Hospital took control of the Globe Street Garage, which means it is NOT a public garage and the hospital has continued to expand.

A parking garage benefits the residents in several ways:

•The business district is responsible for a significant percentage of the Borough’s revenue. Even at the lowest figure, this directly means an offset of the resident’s taxes by 25% or more. Businesses in town do not utilize the school system and most use private garbage and recycling, which reduce the cost burden a business puts on the town tremendously. The taxes a building in downtown pays is based on property value, just like residences. Just like residences, the law of supply and demand dictate the value of the property value. The number one reason Red Bank has not been able to attract anchor stores like Apple, Abercrombie & Fitch, Trader Joes, etc., is because of the parking shortfall. This is not speculation… it was stated by all of these companies when they visited town and left. The more businesses we bring to town, the more taxes the town receives, the more it benefits the ability of the town to balance their budget without the need for tax increases to the residents.

•Parking itself is a huge revenue generator for the town. The 2016 budget process in Red Bank demonstrated this, clearly, with a parking rate increase needed to balance a revenue shortfall. There’s low maintenance cost, low personnel costs, and you get to resell the same parking space over and over. As a business, parking has a tremendous profit ratio.

•A majority of traffic downtown on weekends and show nights is from people driving in circles trying to find a place to put their car or blocking traffic while waiting for someone to pull out of a space. Driving straight into town and into a parking spot will reduce congestion and traffic through residential zones significantly.

The Borough is awaiting proposals from qualified developers to build a 773 space parking garage/mixed use facility. Proposals are due by the first week of April. Local property owner, John Bowers, has presented an exclusively only parking structure that would preclude the need to have it built by a private developer. The proposal from Mr. Bowers would provide 809 parking spaces and “pay for itself” with bonding from the Borough for the construction costs. The unresolved issue, at this time, is that the plan would need financial backing from RiverCenter, an option that has not been ruled out by the RiverCenter Executive Committee and supported by the RBBA.

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