By Sunayana Prabhu
MIDDLETOWN – Circus Wines, Beer & Spirits, a longtime fixture on Route 35 in the township, plans to relocate farther up the highway into Middletown Plaza by Nov. 1. But its landmark signage, Calico the Evil Clown, probably won’t move with the store.
“The clown’s going to stay right where it’s at,” said Lou Scaduto Jr., president and co-owner of Circus Liquors Inc.
“The clown goes with the property unless myself and my family decide to uproot it and move it,” he added.
The Scaduto and Azzolina families, long-time residents of the township, have owned the property for generations and have been trying to develop the land for nearly 23 years, Scaduto said. The 30-foot-tall steel clown was originally built in 1953 to advertise the family’s Food Circus grocery store at the same location, which was replaced by the liquor store in 1991.
Scaduto said Circus Liquors has signed a lease for its new location with Brixmor, the real estate company that owns Middletown Plaza. The liquor store will be moving into 13,000 square feet of retail space currently occupied by Party Fair, although, according to Middletown Township Administrator Tony Mercantante, the township has no official notice of the move.
“To date… the Township has not received any applications for a place-to-place transfer of its (Circus Liquors) liquor license or any other permitting that would likely be required for its relocation, so we cannot provide any further information or comment,” Mercantante said in an email to The Two River Times July 30.
According to Scaduto, the move is motivated by better business opportunities at Middletown Plaza, which offers a “better synergy” to “capture additional volume for people that are either at Trader Joe’s or at the gym or at At Home and all the other satellite stores.” The decision is also driven by the fact that the property where the liquor store has been located for decades is the subject of active litigation between the owners and the township.
The nearly 52-acre Circus Liquors property was part of a larger, almost 135-acre parcel owned by Mountain Hill LLC, a joint venture between the Scaduto and Azzolina families, who are first cousins. The families had previously agreed to the township’s Circus Liquors Redevelopment Plan, which subdivided the entire parcel into two separate tracts, one for commercial and one for residential use.
Nearly 80 acres of the residential tract behind the liquor store on Kings Highway East have already been sold and developed by Toll Brothers into apartments and 350 townhomes, including an affordable housing element. However, litigation is now pending over the proposed use of the nearly 52-acre commercial tract fronting Route 35, currently occupied by the liquor store. While Mountain Hill LLC is now seeking a residential development on the parcel, township officials remain in favor of the commercial development proposed in the Circus Liquors Redevelopment Plan.
Mountain Hill LLC tried to develop the property for commercial use in the past, but its efforts did not pan out as expected. “In times like today, it’s very hard to say you’re going to build 360,000 square feet of retail space (as per the township’s redevelopment plan) because you don’t want to build it and have it look empty. You want to build it and fill it,” Scaduto said.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, plans to construct the Village-35/ Shoppes At Middletown, a roughly 360,000-square-foot shopping plaza on the site, failed after National Realty Development Corp., a Manhattan-based commercial real estate developer in contract-purchase with Mountain Hill LLC at the time, withdrew due to loss of key tenants, such as Wegman’s and a movie theater. Last year, the owners entered into a contract-purchase agreement with another developer, AAMHMT Properties LLC, which proposed residential apartments with a fair share housing element on the same property. The township rejected the plan.
“The Circus Liquors site is blighted and has not been fully productive since the 1990s,” Middletown Mayor Tony Perry told The Two River Times in September 2023. According to Perry, the
Azzolina family has been claiming a farmland tax exemption by harvesting the remaining trees on the site; township records show they paid $87,285.84 in taxes in 2023 for the 52-acre commercial tract.
At its February meeting, the Middletown Township governing body voted unanimously to condemn the site, agreeing to take the property by eminent domain and compensate Mountain Hill LLC, but the owners refused, leading to litigation.
The township is currently pursuing the redevelopment plans with B. Duva, a developer solicited through an official Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) earlier this year.
Every redevelopment plan proposed for the site has had its proponents and opponents, including the idea of turning the property into a thriving downtown district the township has never had.
“We want it to be something Middletown could be proud of and something that our family could be proud of, even though it’s really not going to be our property because there is a purchaser on the tract of land,” Scaduto said.
In addition to Circus Liquors, the Scaduto and Azzolina families own a portfolio of businesses, including four supermarkets, six liquor stores, and three Pet Supplies Plus franchise stores. The families are also involved in real estate development, with the Middletown Circus Liquors property being one of their most significant projects. The owners’ intention to leave a legacy with this property now “really comes down to the contract purchaser, to put a tasteful project in there that the town’s going to be happy with,” said Scaduto.
The article originally appeared in the August 1 – 7, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
