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 Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 12:48 am EST Post subject: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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Starting new thread about this topic
| Guest wrote: | It is hard to start any type of new business - esp. a small business. Even SuperFresh which has been around for a long time, is closing in East Windsor....  |
Cranbury has a different issue then other towns, the downtown is sooooo close to a busy highway. And any good business person would rather open shop on a heavy traffic road like RT130, then intown. What does work well in a town like cranbury is FOOOD, that is the only exception, people are willing to get off the beaten path for a good meal. But even then most chains will still only open up on busy roads like RT130. Now the recent rezoning of commercial on South Main street seems silly to me, trying to drive business off of RT130 and bring traffic through town just wont work from a business standpoint. I for one dont want to see us build a strip mall at old trenton Rd and South main. That would be bad business and ruin the character of the town area. Sure South Main needs to be improved from what it looks like today, but a strip mall will be an eye sore. If the TC took more care to protect the future growth of the village area they would want to balance the look of the houses on the both sides and extend the village character out to south main, and making a bigger village. House should be build like the ones across the street, and the village would be extended with consistent architecture. Then restaurants could move into those houses as business and demand increases over time in our village naturally, just like restaurants can today in North Main. |
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 12:50 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | It seems a bank, dry cleaner, and to be determined stores will be built on the 1st floor and apartments on the second floor. |
Maybe something along the lines of this image below minus the third floor so with only the stores on the bottom and one floor above with apartments.
http://www.multihousingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Robin.jpg |
Where exactly is this stuff being built? on the old Hagerty property? It seems that these proposals are very insensitive to the fact that Cranbury is an old farm town and you could say that it still looks and feels that way. That's the attraction and that's why we keep preserving our farmland. Anything remotely like this picture or a strip mall somewhere along Main St. would completely wreck it and intrude on the National Historic District. |
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 12:51 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | It is hard to start any type of new business - esp. a small business. Even SuperFresh which has been around for a long time, is closing in East Windsor.... |
Cranbury has a different issue then other towns, the downtown is sooooo close to a busy highway. And any good business person would rather open shop on a heavy traffic road like RT130, then intown. What does work well in a town like cranbury is FOOOD, that is the only exception, people are willing to get off the beaten path for a good meal. But even then most chains will still only open up on busy roads like RT130. Now the recent rezoning of commercial on South Main street seems silly to me, trying to drive business off of RT130 and bring traffic through town just wont work from a business standpoint. I for one dont want to see us build a strip mall at old trenton Rd and South main. That would be bad business and ruin the character of the town area. Sure South Main needs to be improved from what it looks like today, but a strip mall will be an eye sore. If the TC took more care to protect the future growth of the village area they would want to balance the look of the houses on the both sides and extend the village character out to south main, and making a bigger village. House should be build like the ones across the street, and the village would be extended with consistent architecture. Then restaurants could move into those houses as business and demand increases over time in our village naturally, just like restaurants can today in North Main. |
ok, so why isn't there more opposition to the gigantic brand new non-historic mc-mansion that is going to be built in the pnc parking lot right in the center of town?? not sure why no one is following up on it. if you don't care about that, why be so concerned about building matching houses down on south main street. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 7:34 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Characterizing the new house as gigantic is not inaccurate. It will look like one of the Liedtke Drive houses stuck there. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 8:05 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Characterizing the new house as gigantic is not inaccurate. It will look like one of the Liedtke Drive houses stuck there. |
Here is an idea. Go find out the projected square footage of the house in the old PNC parking lot. Then compare it to the square footage of a house on Liedtke Ct. I will accept your apology. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 10:26 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: |
.. Anything remotely like this picture or a strip mall somewhere along Main St. would completely wreck it and intrude on the National Historic District. |
I agree, I am surprised that the Historic society and HPAC have not been fighting this. Protecting the village from a developer who wants to plop down a strip mall in the middle of a historic district is just the sort of thing they should be chartered to act upon. And as they build this commercial eye sore, the developer will even have to demolish an 18th century home on the site. What is the purpose of the historic society in Cranbury if its not to preserve 18th century homes and enhance the quaint village character for future generations?
http://goo.gl/maps/m6h8 |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 10:57 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: |
.. Anything remotely like this picture or a strip mall somewhere along Main St. would completely wreck it and intrude on the National Historic District. |
I agree, I am surprised that the Historic society and HPAC have not been fighting this. Protecting the village from a developer who wants to plop down a strip mall in the middle of a historic district is just the sort of thing they should be chartered to act upon. And as they build this commercial eye sore, the developer will even have to demolish an 18th century home on the site. What is the purpose of the historic society in Cranbury if its not to preserve 18th century homes and enhance the quaint village character for future generations?
http://goo.gl/maps/m6h8 |
Its outside of the historic district. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 11:24 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: |
.. Anything remotely like this picture or a strip mall somewhere along Main St. would completely wreck it and intrude on the National Historic District. |
I agree, I am surprised that the Historic society and HPAC have not been fighting this. Protecting the village from a developer who wants to plop down a strip mall in the middle of a historic district is just the sort of thing they should be chartered to act upon. And as they build this commercial eye sore, the developer will even have to demolish an 18th century home on the site. What is the purpose of the historic society in Cranbury if its not to preserve 18th century homes and enhance the quaint village character for future generations?
http://goo.gl/maps/m6h8 |
18th century??? When was that house built? |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 11:52 am EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: |
18th century??? When was that house built? |
from the looks of it, sometime in 1840s to 1910s? |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 12:25 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: |
18th century??? When was that house built? |
from the looks of it, sometime in 1840s to 1910s? |
So 19th or early 20th century. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 12:48 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: |
18th century??? When was that house built? |
from the looks of it, sometime in 1840s to 1910s? |
So 19th or early 20th century. |
Point is that the historic society has been preserving and registering homes in this age range throughout the historic district for preservation,and even moving some homes that are threatened (like the Home next to park), what happened to this one? Why is this an exception? Is HPAC and HS asleep? |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 1:15 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: |
18th century??? When was that house built? |
from the looks of it, sometime in 1840s to 1910s? |
So 19th or early 20th century. |
Point is that the historic society has been preserving and registering homes in this age range throughout the historic district for preservation,and even moving some homes that are threatened (like the Home next to park), what happened to this one? Why is this an exception? Is HPAC and HS asleep? |
They were all too busy dancing in their new red barn to even care about what south main street will turn into once the builders get their way. Both the white warehouse and florist buildings have been offensive to the Cranbury character ever since I've lived here. But I agree with you a long row of storefronts would also be offensive as I drive by that part of Cranbury. Plenty of places to live in NJ if you want that kind of thing near you, Cranbury village has a different feel that would be forever altered. Planning board should take example from places like Pennington, Allentown NJ, and even NewHope, New Town PA are better examples, rather then Robbinsville. Those places have been growing its downtown commerce without having developers build a stripmall in the middle of those historic districts. Robbinsville never had a historic area to care about what a huge mall would do to its character. What does the leadership at the historic preservation society have to say about these changes?? and what will they do? |
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 1:19 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Here is a concept. Show up at a meeting and see what they are doing. These plans are in their very early stages. They really do not resemble what is being described here. There is so much misinformation that I do not know where to begin. Get the story straight, then begin posting. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 1:34 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Here is a concept. Show up at a meeting and see what they are doing. These plans are in their very early stages. They really do not resemble what is being described here. There is so much misinformation that I do not know where to begin. Get the story straight, then begin posting. |
I did make it to one meeting, they were all scheduled in middle of winter around the holiday season, but I also reviewed the master plan in detail, so I'm not sure what your point is. In the Cranbury master plan it even has example designs of what storefronts are acceptable as well as the specs for the zoning... and its not in character for what should be on main street in a historic village, IMHO. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 1:57 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: |
.. Anything remotely like this picture or a strip mall somewhere along Main St. would completely wreck it and intrude on the National Historic District. |
I agree, I am surprised that the Historic society and HPAC have not been fighting this. Protecting the village from a developer who wants to plop down a strip mall in the middle of a historic district is just the sort of thing they should be chartered to act upon. And as they build this commercial eye sore, the developer will even have to demolish an 18th century home on the site. What is the purpose of the historic society in Cranbury if its not to preserve 18th century homes and enhance the quaint village character for future generations?
http://goo.gl/maps/m6h8 |
Its outside of the historic district. |
Think its time to expand the historic village district then so that this area is included or we will loose another historic building |
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Guest
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| Posted: Fri, Feb 18 2011, 2:21 pm EST Post subject: Re: Why Strip Mall on South Main was approved |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | Here is a concept. Show up at a meeting and see what they are doing. These plans are in their very early stages. They really do not resemble what is being described here. There is so much misinformation that I do not know where to begin. Get the story straight, then begin posting. |
I did make it to one meeting, they were all scheduled in middle of winter around the holiday season, but I also reviewed the master plan in detail, so I'm not sure what your point is. In the Cranbury master plan it even has example designs of what storefronts are acceptable as well as the specs for the zoning... and its not in character for what should be on main street in a historic village, IMHO. |
It is across from Cranbury Green. There is no retail on Main Street it it will be residential on Main street and not be out of place for what is across the street. I know you hate losing the historic character of shattered green houses and a large concrete block building without windows. |
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