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Planners OK 3.25 million sq. ft. of warehouse space
BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer
WOODBRIDGE — The Planning Board voted unanimously last week to grant preliminary approval to a project that would redevelop 290 acres of contaminated Port Reading and Carteret land with 3.25 million square feet of warehouse and light manufacturing space.
The Catellus Development Corp.’s proposed eight-building business park, which is planned to inhabit only 12 acres of the property in Carteret, will generate $4 million in new tax ratables annually, Catellus Senior Vice President Kevin Matzke said.
The project is expected to take eight to 10 years to complete.
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s Interchange 12 extension project was what attracted Catellus, a real estate development company that owns corporate business parks throughout the nation, to the Port Reading property, Matzke said.
"We’re focused on users of the turnpike. There are few properties [of this size] in close proximity to the New Jersey Turnpike. The location’s proximity to Exit 12 is what attracted us," Matzke said at the hearing. "There is also the availability of a good labor supply."
Matzke testified the project would supply 568 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, which would include 600 warehouse positions and 400 administrative jobs. Woodbridge and Carteret residents will receive hiring preference, he said.
Weeks prior to the hearing, Catellus officials and consultants held two information sessions for residents at Port Reading School No. 9 and the Port Reading Firehouse.
"We’re proud to say we made an extensive effort to meet with the public. ... I think traffic is the issue, and we believe we have solutions to that issue," Catellus attorney Bob Smith of Bob Smith & Associates, Piscataway, said.
The first phase of the project, which Matzke said would take 18 months to complete, would extend Industrial Avenue from Carteret into Woodbridge, ending at the intersection of Port Reading Avenue and Tappen Street. Catellus will then seek approval from the state to make Port Reading Avenue, east of Tappen Street, a light traffic street so that trucks exiting seven of the site’s eight driveways onto Industrial Avenue will only utilize that road to access the turnpike.
Senior Vice President Karl Pehnke of Schoor DePalma, Manalapan, testified as Catellus’ traffic expert.
"We’ll be creating a new truck route by using Industrial Road. We’ve created a structure that would remove and solve the truck problem," he said.
Pehnke said that trucks that now navigate their way to the turnpike via Port Reading Avenue to Roosevelt Avenue to Middlesex Avenue, will, once the road is built, use Industrial Avenue.
Exits from the Catellus site will be designed, Pehnke testified, to ensure trucks could only make left turns onto Industrial Avenue toward the turnpike and not toward Port Reading Avenue.
But there is access into the site via a driveway on Port Reading Avenue, Pehnke said
"There is one building you may not get to from Industrial Avenue," Pehnke said during a break in the hearing. "Key Court you may only access from Port Reading Avenue."
Key Court leads to only one building on the site — Building 6. Building 6, as it is referred to on the project’s site plans, is the smallest warehouse planned for the business park at 78,000 square feet. Pehnke said the road, as it is designed in the plans, allows for truck access. Key Court is located east of Tappen Street.
Although Catellus testified Port Reading Avenue, east of Tappen Street, will be designated as a light traffic street, Pehnke said in a phone interview after the hearing, businesses along Port Reading Avenue must still be able to receive local deliveries from trucks.
Pehnke said other trucks who will not be delivering to businesses off Port Reading Avenue will not utilize the road because it is inconvenient for them to do so.
"And there are ways for the police to monitor trucks [using Port Reading Avenue as a through street]," Pehnke said.
As this was a preliminary hearing, Pehnke said Building 6 may be deleted from the plans.
At the meeting, Pehnke also testified that truck traffic running on West Avenue, which connects Perth Amboy to Sewaren and Port Reading, will amount to 15 to 20 trucks during peak hours once the project is built. Matzke said warehouse operating hours may vary.
"I don’t know the hours of operation," Matzke said. "They could run from eight hours to 24 hours, seven days a week. That’s the expectation."
Vincent Shea, senior engineer of Environmental Resources Management, who testified as Catellus’ environmental consultant, said the brownfields-identified site contains surface oil contamination, PCBs, heavy metals and hydrocarbons.
"We’re taking great pains to work with the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection)," Matzke said. "There will be no net decrease in wetlands and [Catellus will be responsible for] the cleanup of the environmentally contaminated site."
Port Reading residents who attended the hearing said they supported the project, but expressed concerns that the project may affect the quality of their lives.
"I’m a lifelong resident, and I live across the street from Building 1 and Building 2," Mary McDonnell DeLeo of East Fifth Street, Port Reading, said. "I really like the idea of what you’re doing, but I am concerned about particular things."
She raised questions about the site’s drainage and lighting systems.
The project’s planner, Christine Cofone, also of Schoor DePalma, testified that all lighting would face downward and would not spill onto any resident’s property.
The former Woodbridge Planning Board consultant also said that although only 22 feet separates resident property from a Catellus parking lot, there would be a 150-foot distance between a resident’s home and a Catellus warehouse.
"We don’t anticipate drainage impacts on properties across the street," she said.
According to board’s planning report, 6,806 trees will be removed from the site to construct the business park. Catellus has proposed 3,150 replacement trees, plus 2,196 in credit toward remediation acreage. Catellus has agreed to pay the $365,000 for a loss of 1,460 trees that will be part of a developer’s agreement.
"I’m thrilled they’re replacing the trees," the board’s town council representative Patricia Osborne said. "I’d love to see it go into the tree fund; however, I don’t know what the developer’s agreement is going to be with the township."
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