State approves first phase of business center repaving

LAKEWOOD - With an $864,552 state Urban Enterprise Zone Authority (UEZA) project approval in hand, members of the Lakewood Development Cor-poration (LDC) Board of Trustees awarded a $38,800 contract for design, contract document, bid support and construction administration for the repaving of roads in the township's industrial park.

The state approval earlier this month for Phase I of an estimated $4.2 million project came after the submission of a road evaluation report completed by Birdsall Engineering, Eatontown, priori-tizing needed road repairs in the township's business center earlier this year.

Mayor Meir Lichtenstein noted the UEZ project was the first effort to repave the commercial roads since the park's inception in the 1970s.

"The industrial park is the regional job center of Ocean County," Lichtenstein said. "We have every intention of seeing this project through to completion."

Township Committeeman Charles Cunliffe, the Township Committee's liaison to the LDC, lauded the project as "doing the right thing for the business community. The township is obligated to maintain the road system infrastructure [to] expand job opportunities and economic viability."

According to Russell K. Corby, the township's UEZ coordinator and executive director of the LDC, a total of 6,000 feet of road is to be repaired.

First on the list of roads targeted under Phase I are: Oberlin Avenue north from Cedar Bridge Avenue to Swarth-more Avenue; Swarthmore Avenue from Lehigh to Rutgers University Boulevard; and Towbin Avenue from Oak Street to the Ocean County Recycling Center entrance.

Officials of the LDC are awaiting word from the state to add a portion of Airport Road repaving to the Phase I work.

"We would like to be in position by the fall to get this project under way and then be in a position in the spring of 2007 to consider Phase II," said Corby.

The project is expected to have four or five phases in all, according to a press release.