While developer iStar has mapped out an ambitious plan to transform Asbury Park’s waterfront with luxury condos, a swanky hotel, a revamped music venue and other mixed-use projects, a local developer is hoping to slide into the action.
Regional Development Group, led by Trip Brooks, who has lived in Asbury Park since 1999, recently received approval from iStar and the city council to become a “subsequent developer” in the waterfront redevelopment area of the city.
The hope is to turn a vacant building at 215 First Ave. into a four-story, 24-unit “boutique condominium” building that would be marketed as “full-time residences,” not just summer spots, Brooks said. There will be 12 two-bedroom units and 12 three-bedroom condos, with prices ranging from $600,000 to $1.1 million.
The Asbury Park Press first reported the news of the development.
Brooks, who recently developed and opened Park Place, a six-story condominium building in Asbury Park, said the next step is to receive approval from the city’s Planning Board. Optimistically, construction on the $9 million project will begin in April and would be completed in 2020.
Brooks said he is not concerned with being overshadowed by iStar’s sprawling development. With Asbury Park’s commercial spaces — restaurants, bars and shops — continuing to grow, he said they are what is driving the current residential surge, adding the beach and proximity to Manhattan also helps.
“Everything plays off each other,” said Brooks, crediting iStar’s Asbury Hotel, a glitzy 110-room boutique hotel that opened in 2016 as “spearheading the next level of development.”
So far under their multi-billion-dollar investment of a one-mile beachfront stretch in Asbury Park, iStar has constructed the hotel, renovated Asbury Lanes, an iconic bowling alley and music venue, and are soon set to open the Asbury Ocean Club, a 17-story, 130-unit luxury condo building with units as much as $6 million.
Brian Cheripka, senior vice president for land and development for iStar, told NJ Advance Media recently that they are permitted to build around 3,100 units under the redevelopment plan.
According to Zillow, home values in Asbury Park have increased more than 25 percent over the past year.