By Chris Rotolo
ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – A unanimous decision by the borough planning board has cleared a path for Starbucks to bring the first of its cafés to the Bayshore’s Route 36 corridor.
Duncan Prime of the Mt. Laurel firm Prime and Tuvel appeared before the board in February with an application that eyed the site of a former Burger King restaurant to be repurposed as a Starbucks. The new shop will feature a drive-thru, an indoor café, an outdoor seating area, and three bike racks for riders of the nearby Henry Hudson Trail in need of a caffeine boost.
Though borough resident Morgan Spicer expressed understanding about the economic value of an operational establishment in the 3,036-square-foot commercial space, which has sat vacant since July 2020, she was concerned about the potential negative impacts on locally owned businesses with similar products already in the borough, like 1st Cup Coffee, Fair Mountain Coffee Roasters and Flour on First.
“As a property owner in town, I just have to say that had I known there was going to be (a Starbucks) in town, I wouldn’t have bought my home,” Spicer said during public comment. “We have a lot of small businesses in town that sell coffee, and I’m very worried about them a couple years down the line. I am deeply concerned about the effects of bringing in these corporations who don’t necessarily have a lot of concern for Atlantic Highlands.”
The applicant came before the board seeking variances for a drive-thru, in addition to its proposed number of parking spaces.
Despite the previous fast-food steward operating with a drive-thru on the property, which features frontage along West Avenue and Garfield Avenue in addition to Route 36, the popular feature is not a permitted use in the borough’s Central Business District (CBD) zone.
In addition to including that amenity, the applicant also proposed an extension of the drive-thru area to a square footage that can support 13 vehicles, compared to the eight-car queue previously established by the Burger King franchise.
The proposal also called for only 42 parking spaces, including two ADA-compliant stalls, where 61 are required.
Transportation engineer Adam Gibson, of the Princeton firm Kimley-Horn, presented data that showed 60 to 65 percent of patrons frequenting Starbucks establishments of similar size and location are considered “passerby users,” who would utilize the drive-thru, rather than parking and entering the facility.
Of the remaining 40 percent of patrons, Gibson said 23 percent of those consumers complete their order using a mobile device, like a cellphone, and would make use of the three “five-minute parking” stalls on site.
Planning board member Martin Crowther questioned the accuracy of the data in relation to the unique traffic patterns of the borough, with regard to the SeaStreak Ferry launch in the Atlantic Highlands harbor, as well as the departing summertime traffic off the beaches of the Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook and the neighboring municipalities of Sea Bright, Monmouth Beach and Long Branch.
“What happens if things start to back up in the queue? You’re predicting 13 vehicles in the drive-thru before anything is impacted. What happens if you add another six cars? Will the handicap spaces still be able to function? What about trash and recycling pickups?” Crowther asked. “We live four miles from Sandy Hook. How do you factor weekend evenings?”
Gibson admitted his traffic study did not include data for the summer months, but his team did perform a weekend, holiday traffic study in January to imitate that peak season environment, in addition to bolstering the data collected during the pandemic to mimic pre-pandemic travel conditions.
“This is precisely why we did the sensitivity analysis for peak hours and applied it to the data we did have. We grew our data up to see what would happen if traffic doubles during peak hours. Would we still be able to operate effectively in those conditions? And based on the data, we’re confident, with a 95 percent confidence interval, the site will still operate within compliance,” Gibson added.
There is not yet an established timeline for when work will begin on the site.
The article originally appeared in the March 3 – 9, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
