By Allison Perrine
RUMSON – The Rumson Zoning Board continued its deliberation over plans to bring a youth academic and community center to East River Road Tuesday night, July 20.
Throughout the four-plus hour meeting, board members heard continued testimony from professionals representing the applicant, The Peach Pit, LLC, which hopes to transform property on East River Road. No votes were taken on the application and the case will be carried over to the board’s September meeting when the public is expected to have the chance to make comments.
The property in question sits at 101 East River Road, which is currently a two-story commercial office space with a parking lot behind it paved for nine vehicles. The Peach Pit, LLC, hopes to convert it into a facility that would provide “a safe and enriching environment” to meet children’s academic, social and emotional needs, and to be a place of support for parents and teachers, according to the presentation.
The first floor of the center will have a youth play café area with a kitchen in which to prepare food and drinks for sale, as well as tables and counter seating. It will also include a lounge area with chairs, couches, a TV and games. The second floor will be a designated “learning center” with spaces for tutoring and studying, according to the application. The center will be limited to members only and pre-registration will be required to use the space. The parking lot would be formally striped and feature a designated ADA-compliant parking space.
The center would be in operation throughout the school year and in some capacity through the summer and on weekends. The first session throughout the school year will be for children in the mornings from 9 a.m. to noon which would be open to members. Parents or caregivers could walk in for playtime with children ages 10 months to 4 years, where they could play in a safe and monitored area. Adults could utilize the café for socializing and working where a chef would prepare healthy food options, drinks and coffee. For the children, lunch would be available by delivery from 10:30 a.m. to noon.
The center would be closed from noon to 2:30 p.m. so employees can prepare for school-age children to arrive for the next session, open from 2:30 to 7 p.m. During that time, staff would clean the building and prepare the food for the afternoon.
Tara D’Uva, director of operations of The Peach Pit, LLC, anticipates that there will be four employees and 12 guests in the building in the morning sessions, three employees with no guests during the transition period and six employees and 44 guests in the afternoons.
Those who visit the center after 2:30 p.m. will have access to pre-ordered lunches, snacks and drinks on the first floor, along with café tables and seating for socializing and homework. On the second floor, students ages 16 and under can visit quiet workstations for studying or tutoring, but pre-registration will be required. The center can be utilized year-round for birthday parties on Saturdays at either 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for hour-and-a-half blocks, as well as in the summer from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
D’Uva noted that the center will be available to help working parents and will post the associated costs should the application be approved. There will be a “wide range” of academic and extracurricular offerings that will change throughout the year and a bike rack will be available for those who wish to cycle to the center.
During the meeting, D’Uva continued to answer questions about the classes and other features that will be offered at the center, followed by testimony by architect Robert Adler. He noted that the building, which was once a real estate office, has a total of 2,126 square feet. It is owned by 101 East River, LLC, and The Peach Pit is hoping to be a tenant of the building. The owner is currently making some upgrades to ready the building for use and rental – whether this variance application is approved or not.
“The exterior – it is being facelifted now and so for the purpose of this occupant, the only changes we’re really proposing have to do with the signage,” said Adler. “The other things are being done regardless so that the building can be rented.”
John McCormack, traffic engineer, said traffic generation projections show that activity peak will be after school when homework help and classes begin at the center. However, being that the property is “in the heart of the borough” and is only about a block from Rumson-Fair Haven High School, Forrestdale Middle School and Deane-Porter Elementary School, he anticipates that a “majority” of children will walk or bike to the center.
“Maybe the working parents are not home quite at 3 o’clock. This is a great stopping point for those kids to kind of debrief, socialize, have a snack and then go home a little bit later, another hour or so, when their parents are home,” he said. “We anticipate that approximately 20 children or so, or maybe 50 percent of the occupancy, would be driven to the site.”
He also assured that all food deliveries will be made by box trucks or vans; there will not be any 18-wheelers or larger vehicles, “like the restaurants do,” parking in the street to unload, said Jennifer Krimko, an attorney with Ansell Grimm & Aaron, PC who represented the applicant.
But Gabby McGill, an alternate member of the borough zoning board, noted that the neighborhood is often “packed with cars” on any given weekday. “You can barely get through to get to a pickup line” at school, she said. Similarly, Rumson resident and attorney Adam M. Harris, a partner with Ropes & Gray LLP, also challenged the parking demand for the site and questioned McCormack on the subject for some time.
Krimko responded by citing McCormack’s testimony and noted that this proposed use “is less of a traffic generator than many of the permitted uses” that could go there. “This is a neighborhood facility – that’s what it’s geared for. It’s geared to keep the driving traffic down,” said McCormack, and its “main customers” will be those who walk and bike. “There is more than significant parking off-site or on-street to accommodate the parking demand of this facility.”
The hearing will continue at the board’s Sept. 21 meeting at 7:30 p.m.
This article originally appeared in the July 29 – Aug. 4, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
