Politics & Government

Pre-Demolition Work Underway At Beachwood Shopping Center, Mayor Says

The long saga to remove the dilapidated shopping center continues

by Patricia A. Miller

The dismantling of the battered Beachwood Shopping Center has begun, one piece of sheet metal at a time.

Crews have been pulling off large sheets of metal and other building materials over the past several weeks, in preparation for the eyesore's eventual demolition.

"It's going to take a little time," Mayor Carmen F. Amato Jr. wrote on his Facebook page. "The pre-demo work must take place first to get it ready for demolition."

Complicating the process is asbestos present in the buildings, most of which have been vacant for decades.

"After the initial pre demolition work is done, a licensed asbestos abatement company will come in next to remediate it," Amato said. "Then it's wrecking ball time."

The township received two $12,500 checks this fall from the interested redevelopers, M&M Realty and Lennar Corp. The funds were placed in an escrow account, Amato said.

The two companies were named the redevelopers of record for the site earlier year. The Beachwood Shopping Center is the Town Center portion of the township's massive redevelopment plan.

Lennar and M&M Realty are still in negotiations with owner Priscilla Oughton over the remediation of the site, which has environmental problems.

Oughton - who lives in Fort Lauderdale By-the Sea in Florida, has steadily been accruing fines for the condition of the shopping center since Superstorm Sandy slammed into Berkeley over a year ago.

So far, the township has collected $65,000 in fines from Oughton. She inherited the shopping center from her father, the late James Johnson. He built the plaza decades ago and named it the "Beachwood Shopping Center" even though the site is in Berkeley, after a tiff with township officials.

The fines began when Township Fire Official Jack Wiegartner ordered a number of corrective actions be taken after a vacant store in the battered strip mall caught fire during the height of Superstorm Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012.

Shortly after the storm, he ordered owner Priscilla Oughton to take a number of corrective actions immediately, including vacating the shopping center, removing the structures, demolishing the structures and removing all debris.

Wiegartner found eight violations. Oughton was notified she would be fined $5,000 a day for each one.

The township's years-long quest to have the redevelopment plan approved ended in July 2012, when the state Planning Commission unanimously approved it.

The state's approval will make it easier for the redevelopers to proceed once an agreement for the environmental cleanup has been hammered out, Amato said.

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"We're a little ways away, but each day that passes we're one step closer," he wrote.

The Beachwood Shopping Center - dubbed Town Center 1 - is just one component or "node" in the township's massive redevelopment plan. The Berkeley Plaza shopping center, which has ShopRite as the anchor store, and the land around Frederick Drive and the Shar-A-Dee apartments is designated as Town Center 2.

Find out what's happening in Berkeleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The third portion of the redevelopment plan is the extension of a light industrial area along Hickory Lane. The fourth section involves more intensive mixed use development of 73 parcels along Route 9 near Harbor Inn Road.



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