By Stephen Appezzato
RED BANK – The picturesque flower beds and bistro lighting of Broadwalk will be expanded this year to grace side streets in the downtown district through a RiverCenter beautification project.
The initiative was announced following the organization winning a $150,000 Transformation Grant from Main Street New Jersey, the statewide coordinating program of the National Trust’s National Main Street Center.
Specifically, flower beds will be placed along Broad, White, Monmouth and Front streets, while overhead bistro lighting will be expanded to White, Mechanic and Wallace streets.
Bob Zuckerman, executive director of RiverCenter, said the plan is “really going to help liven up the downtown.”
“Between the new lighting and the new gardens, the downtown’s going to look fabulous,” he said.
RiverCenter is a nonprofit organization that advocates for local businesses, works to increase tourism in the borough and promotes Red Bank’s vibrant offerings. It is partly funded by the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Travel and Tourism.
“We have a professional gardener – the name of the company is Lily’s of the Valley and the name of the principal there is Danielle Boyle – and she used to do work at The Grove for many, many years. Now she’s doing some work with us,” Zuckerman said.
“She planted the pilot garden beds last year that we had on Broad Street, which are, of course, coming back. And this grant is going to allow us to have some more new gardens,” he said.
The $150,000 grant will also help RiverCenter achieve its business recruitment and optimization goals by funding a subscription to Placer.ai.
Placer.ai is cloud-based software that uses anonymously sourced mobile location data to calculate the number of cell phones being used in an area.
Zuckerman said Placer. ai will “enable us and our businesses to gain insights into things like visitor demographics, foot traffic patterns, and consumer behavior here in our downtown.”
“This data we can use for business recruitment efforts, and it can also provide real-time data to our property owners, commercial brokers and prospective new business owners,” he said, describing the software as “remarkable.”
Zuckerman predicts Broadwalk will again be a hit this year with the coming additions.
Money from the grant will also help fund a partnership with Count Basie Center for the Arts on a future project. At this time, Zuckerman could not comment on the project, which has not been made public yet, but he said it pertains to the Basie’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2026 and “it’s going to be great.”
The expansion of Broadwalk’s characteristic flower beds and atmosphere lighting comes a month after RiverCenter received approval to construct a “parklet” on Monmouth Street. That grant-funded project will offer a pedestrian-friendly outdoor space for respite and relaxation and will be built along the sidewalk and parking area near the corner of Monmouth and Broad streets.
The article originally appeared in the May 2 – May 8, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
