by John Burton
RED BANK – Competitive champion cycling won’t be coming to Red Bank this summer and an event organizer is voicing his frustration over the process while a borough official defends it.
“They just slammed the door shut. Period,” said Jack Simes, an event producer for what he and other organizers had hoped would be an Aug. 6 event here in the borough.
“It’s really unfortunate. We did a lot of work on it and it would certainly be a benefit to the community all around,” Simes maintained. “From a business perspective, for a quality of life perspective.”
Stanley Sickels is the borough administrator who chairs the Special Events Committee, which evaluates such proposals. In response to Simes’ assertions, Sickels said the plan posed “too drastic an impact,” on the community with organizers leaving too many of the details too vaguely covered.
“There were a lot of considerations,” Sickels explained, “and the committee felt it was not in the best interest of the town.”
Simes, a professional cycling sport and business veteran along with being a former Olympic Coach, was organizing the event with the support of the National Cycling Association and the USA CRITS Professional Cycling League. (See story Cyclists Plan Red Bank Road Race). Adam Rechnitz, who owns and operates Triumph Brewery in a couple of locations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and will soon open a new location on Bridge Avenue incorporated into the West Side Lofts mixed residential and commercial development, planned on being the event’s corporate sponsor, using the event as a promotion for his business. Josh Rechnitz, Adam’s twin brother, was also on board serving as founder and executive producer for the event.
The event would have been a largely daylong affair that would include professional men’s and women’s Criterium racing competitions—high speed races done in largely urban environments-– conducted in the early evening. The races would offer $250,000 in prizes and was expected to attract top tier racers, organizers said.
USA CRITS had already included the Red Bank Event as one of its premier events for the 2016 season, Simes said.
In addition to the main races, plans called for a “Gran Fondo”—a multi-mile ride open to amateur riders of all abilities; and an ongoing youth oriented program on safety and promoting cycling as a healthy life activity.
Organizers appeared before the borough’s Special Events Committee on three separate occasions and reconfigured the race route three times to accommodate concerns raised by committee members, according to Simes.
The most recent discussion was at the committee’s March 7 meeting. At that time, Simes said, the route was revised to incorporate west side locations, starting on Bridge Avenue in the area of Triumph, proceeding to the NJ Transit commuter rail station, with cyclists moving east on Monmouth Street, making a left of West Street, left on West Front Street, right on Morford Place, left on Brower Place and looping around completing on Bridge Avenue.
There were problems with this route and its logistics, too, Sickels stressed. For one thing, it meant crossing railroad tracks; for another, he said, West Front Street is a county road, requiring county government approval to close it. It is also a main traffic artery to Riverview Medical Center, Sickels pointed out, and while August is a slow month for borough activities, “There is no slow time for the hospital.”
“The road closures, believe me, it was insignificant,” Simes countered, explaining traffic could easily be detoured through residential neighborhoods for the short periods required, “regardless of what they’re saying.”
The committee had other issues which organizers didn’t address, along with detours of traffic for the limited ingress and egress to the borough, and the overall quality of some of the roadways. “There are liability issues. Are they going to pave the roads before they use them?” Sickels asked.
But the biggest issue was what it meant for the local businesses, Sickels maintained. “We need to have the business buy in,” he said.
Simes said a meeting with representatives of Red Bank RiverCenter, the management arm for the commercial Special Improvement District, resulted in “They said they we’re in favor of that, they would support the event.”
Sickels disputed that assertion, saying RiverCenter hadn’t endorsed it. “They did not come in with documentation of the businesses supporting it.”
Calls to James Scavone, RiverCenter’s executive director, seeking comment for this story were not returned.
Simes feels the event would be beneficial to the business community on the whole as has been the case in other locations that host them. “We had done preliminary research going to the cafes and restaurants around there,” meaning along the race route, he said, “and received some general support.”
“It was all very negative,” Simes said of his experience with the committee. And it’s unfortunate, he added, because organizers were considering New Hope, Pennsylvania, another Triumph location, with that town expressing interest in the event. “A new business investing millions of dollars on the west side gets punched in the gut like that,” Simes said of Triumph’s efforts.
Calls to Adam Rechnitz seeking comment for this story were not returned.
The special events committee was established in the early 1990s to coordinate for proposed events. Along with administrator office’s involvement, representatives from police and other emergency services, Public Works Utility and Red Bank RiverCenter all have input in the process as the committee weighs in for “the full gamut” of events from block parties, to such large scale activities as the the annual RiverFest food and music festival, street fairs and the former July 3 fireworks display, according to Sickels.
