By Philip Sean Curran
RED BANK – Red Bank will seek $162,625 in state grants to help pay for projects at Riverside Gardens Park and Bellhaven Nature Area.
The borough council voted March 27 to authorize the borough to apply for the funding from the state Department of Environmental Protection. Prior to the vote, borough engineer Laura Neumann outlined the projects and the costs involved.
At Riverside Gardens, the borough intends to spend $113,565 to replace the boardwalk decking and make other improvements at the park located on West Front Street next to the Navesink River.
“It keeps the passive nature of the park, but it does implement a newer boardwalk to ensure that the shoreline stays stable,” Nuemann said. “And, again, the purpose is to maintain the environmental nature and the passive nature that currently exists in the park but just by rehabbing some of what we have out there.”
The borough will look for the state to provide half, or $56,782, of the project cost.
At Bellhaven, plans call for installing an observation tower and “some recreational components,” she said. In recent years officials have been considering what to do with the park on Locust Avenue where the borough considered but dropped an earlier idea to install a water play area.
To help pay for the $423,371 proposal, the borough will seek a grant of $105,842.
Borough administrator Ziad A. Shehady told officials that both projects have been funded through past bond ordinances.
“So if we are successful in these grant applications,” he said, “we’ll be able to not have to draw down on funding from the bond ordinances for these, either reallocate it elsewhere or cancel those funds.”
Photo by Chris Rotolo
He explained the thinking into why officials chose the Riverside Gardens and Bellhaven projects to seek state funding.
“When this grant application came up, the reason we selected these projects for that grant application was because a lot of the technical work and the design work and the engineering work was already done,” he said. “So rather than pick a new project and have to expend new resources on a project that really hasn’t gone through the full vetting process for the council and public, we figured it would be best to pick two existing projects so we can minimize the tax burden.”
Shehady said there is no schedule in place “at this point” for either project.
“Bellhaven will not be open during the work and Riverside will largely remain open with some restricted access to small areas where work is being done,” he said.
In other business, the borough will have a Memorial Day parade for the first time in many years. The parade, scheduled for May 27, is due to step off at Irving and Arthur places at noon, but will be cancelled if there is rain, according to the borough.
After the parade is over there will be a ceremony at 51 Monmouth St.
The borough recreation department and the Red Bank Elks Lodge #233 are sponsoring the parade. Groups interested in marching may call the recreation department at 732-530-2782 and ask for Oscar Salinas.
