OT: Long time Sayreville/South Amboy eyesore going away?
- Thread starter T2Kplus20
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Yes it was. The screen faced Route 9 and the Parkway
For a short time, it was a drive in porno theater. Caused lots of rt 9 accidents by distracted drivers!
To be honest, I've never liked strip clubs.
But they should legalize drugs and prostitution. All we're doing now is burdening the justice system and spending lots of taxpayer money while failing almost entirely to curb the "problem".
Thank the Lord .. OMG .. Finally... what a great spot, just hope the time to fix up doesn't take as long as the other sites....Looked for an existing thread for this story, but nothing seemed appropriate. Hopefully this finally happens!
Redevelopment plan approved for long abandoned N.J. movie theater
The plan provides for the transformation of the underutilized former Amboy Cinemas site in Sayreville.www.nj.com
Pre Indoor Amboy Theater Complex was the Amboy Drive In. There were many in the areas of Essex , Union, Monmouth and Middlesex Counties back in the 50-60-70’s. Best were the Adult Movies shown as people came over the Victory Bridge from a beach weekend. Classic NJ at it’s finest.
True story. One of our tenants was a dancer at Delilah's. Many years ago.
Had so many great times at the drive-in and was not watching movies!
I was forbidden from going near the place. My better half had an elaborate system of cameras and trip wires set up at the property boundaries---KIDDING. Truthfully, however, other than the twin cinemas, did not see the attraction, and I concluded that it must not have been a great place. Like @mildone , not a fan of strip clubs or strippers. Never was.
I think that's the other side of the Parkway (the southbound side). Riverton development. Not sure if it's going ahead, but I did see some earthmoving vehicles there during the summer (not that that means anything).
Riverton
I should clarify that I'm not opposed to strip clubs and have no problem with strippers. I just don't find watching bored nude women dancing to be particularly fun or entertaining. I'd rather spend my time with a woman at a coffee shop or a book store or being intimate or whatever.
Hell, I'd be fine dating a stripper (or a hooker). Long as she's extremely intelligent, loving and kind, ethical, big-hearted, outgoing, hard-working, and all that good stuff, then it's not like I'm gonna be upset that she's also a total sex freak.
I'm a total sex freak, so it'd just be something we have in common. 😃
I'm rather surprised to see this opinion from you. If I'm understanding it correctly, it's using public funds to buy back and remediate private riparian lands. It's heinously expensive if that's what I expect it to be.
I spent many a Christmas Eve at strip clubs in my early 20s.
Big group of us would hang out from about noon until most of the group left for midnight mass. I was and am a heathen so I went home to the family party
Good times
Big group of us would hang out from about noon until most of the group left for midnight mass. I was and am a heathen so I went home to the family party
Good times
In her defense, she never even knew a little thing called the internet!
I agree....this is a lot of added residential space. Schools and taxes will be suffering in a couple of years. The biggest concern I have with this development is that between the space they are redeveloping where the Gap/Wiz was, they are also redeveloping the land right next to it (Loehman's plaza). They should be using the opportunity of taking some of this space to create an overpass to Old Bridge TPK / Edgeboro landfill area. Something like what the Somerville Circle provides for Rt. 202, Rt 206, Rt. 28. East Brunswick needs to put in place where and when it can such overpasses to get Rt. 18 traffic moving and not continued to be a worsening parking lot that nobody wants to traverse to get to stores let alone having to traverse to get to / from work. Yes...one overpass does not alleviate the inability to put one in at Tices lane, etc. But resolving the overall problem starts one intersection at a time.Okay, I may ramble a bit here. Obviously, that portion of Rt. 18 is in desperate need of redevelopment, but EB is truly in a no-win situation. Any new retail/commercial on those locations will just cause other locations on 18 to close and go vacant. EB has WAY TOO MUCH commercially zoned land. Society has changed. The old zoning calculations of sq feet required per X number of residents are outdated.
The only long-term solution is to remove commercial land from the books. This can be done via residential (not preferred), open space, or other services (e.g., indoor sports). The plan allows for too much commercial. Even though residential would be better, EB needs to be careful since adding more will just continue to overload the town's already stressed infrastructure and schools. So, that's not a great idea either.
That said, the plan below for the old Gap/Wiz plaza is pretty good. Less retail than I expected, so hopefully this trend continues. However, the cluster housing number is a concern. I would love to see more green space and activity-based services like indoor sports or rec.
https://www.eastbrunswick.org/DocumentCenter/View/1447/Redevelopment-Plan-for-Area-2A3A-Route-18-PDF
East Brunswick's massive Route 18 redevelopment plan could take first step
The first phase of an ambitious plan for a $500 million mixed-use redevelopment project on Route 18 in East Brunswick is moving closer to constructionwww.mycentraljersey.com
Growing up in Sayreville I saw a million movies there, even some when it was Amboys Drive-In:
Anyways. this is one of the ideas they had in building a minor league ballpark there:
Anyways. this is one of the ideas they had in building a minor league ballpark there:
Can't say I really agree with it (former site of National Lead in a flood zone) but it seems to be moving along however slowly
The NL site wasn't a flood zone when it was the NL site. That part of Sayreville, from the mouth of the Raritan to the South RIver, would flood only very rarely in small parts.
The chronic flooding didn't become an issue until the wetlands on the other side of the river, in Edison, were filled and paved to create Raritan Center. A massive tidal wetland was destroyed for that project and with it went a very important flood buffer.
We've been guilty of great historical negligence when it comes to wetlands. It may well be mankind's single biggest act of environmental negligence.
Holy shit, this guy who owns a pizzeria up the road from me claims his car was stolen from there back in the 80s “in his prior life” and claims he found out where it was taken in Staten Island and got it back by “handling business”. At the time I thought he was just a being a typical North Jersey/Staten Island goombah but who knows.
The NL site has little to do with the boro. It's a SuperFund site. Remediation has been handled, from Day 1, by the EPA.
As for the Amboy Cinema site, my guess is that there's been little interest from developers until now. I haven't tapped my sources for details, yet, but my guess is that's the story. I can find out easily enough, since my old buddy Wiz is doing primarily land use litigation for Sayreville and South Amboy since retiring from politics.
Pizza places still crack me up. I was friends with all the kids whose fathers were rounded up in the great "Pizza Connection" thing. Antoinette Mazzara's old man disappeared the day he was supposed to testify and was later found in a variety of garbage bags.
The funny thing is the pizza place in question (in Sayreville) is still owned by the same family.
I tried to mention it to someone on an East Brunswick board in a facebook news message but got no reply. I’ve heard for years that the belief they have Is that there’s not much that can be done about Rt 18 traffic. I don’t buy that. Can’t boil the ocean but can take incremental steps, especially when the opportunity presents itself
Not sure if this is the reason but my oldest son was a engineering consultant at the sewage treatment plant in Sayreville when Sandy hit. The flooding ruined and took off line that plant for awhile. My son ran the FEMA project for that plant and the one in Union Beach to entomb both plants and lift all machinery 10 feet. After that storm, I'm thinking that stadium idea went out the window. Didn't Somerset Park get major flooding last year?Growing up in Sayreville I saw a million movies there, even some when it was Amboys Drive-In:
Anyways. this is one of the ideas they had in building a minor league ballpark there:
I saw a lot of movies at the the drive in. My grandmother used to work the booth and let us in for free. Then it became a cinema whatever. Started at 4 or 8 don’t recall. Saw a lot of movies at the cinema as well. Then they closed it. Best I knew was some “foundation’ problem.
Not sure of his bosses last name, but Mike was the head engineer and owner. He hired my son before his senior year at Rutgers. Had his job in his back pocket already which was nice. If it's the same Mike, my son learned a lot working for him, and my son got a huge amount of experience bidding and pricing jobs, checking on job sites. It was very hard to leave since he was there 13 years, but with 2 kids, this company just offered too much to turn down. He recently was recruited to a huge Engineering firm in Edison and is running a project tunneling two lines, one for water, the other for sewage, 2 miles long under the river connecting Monmouth beach.
Mike is one of my closest friends - we go back about 45 years. One of the all around nicest people you'll ever meet.
I never went to the theater, but I did go to the drive-in there many times in the late 50's & 60's.
I do not believe you are entirely correct. NL closed the plant (formally) in 1982. Sayreville Economic & Redevelopment Agency (SERA) ultimately reached an agreement with NL to acquire the property in 2005 (so 23 years, which is not out of line in any of these cases) after 10 years engaged in court battles as to the settlement cost.
O'Neill Properties acquired the site in 2008 ("The Pointe") but the effort ultimately went Tango Uniform within about 4 years. It was recast with a new developer, with backing from PGIM, and the current project was announced in 2017.
There can be no underestimation of the scale of the cleanup, there. It's the reason why NL abandoned the property in the first place - they did it to forestall the inevitable cost of the cleanup, since there was no way it could be sold, outright, in the 80s.
I'm pretty well integrated into this, since key political players are personal friends of mine.
The majority of that redevelopment plan will never see the light of day. North Brunswick 2.0.
I'm not sure it will, either, but I'm hopeful. If for no other reason than the plan includes a marina and the central coast suffers from a serious lack of slip space accessible to +65' mast heights.
A short drive from my house. Looking forward to games on the new rink.
