ROXBURY, NJ - More than two months ago, Roxbury officials were promised exterior renovations of a former roller rink in Kenvil were going to start almost “immediately” to help attract a tenant for the long-dormant building.
The pledge was made to the Roxbury Planning Board on Sept. 17 by Bernd Hefele, a lawyer representing Jeff Gruber, the owner of the former Kenvil Arena at 950 Route 46.
He said his client would be applying right away for building permits to fix up the 10,807-square-foot structure as a necessary step toward its reuse. Pressed by the board about a schedule, Hefele — who replaced Patrick Dwyer as Gruber’s lawyer on the project — said there would be no time wasted.
“I can tell you, I am involved in this project now, and we figured out how we are going to approach this,” he told the board. “The approach is to make the building look right. That’s the first thing. Once we make the building look right, then we’re going to be able to attract the appropriate tenants. So the game plan is to immediately roll this out.”
Despite that representation, no work permit applications have been filed with the township, according to the Roxbury Construction Department. In fact, the last permit application related to the building (for electrical work) was filed in 2018.
Cart Before the Horse?
Gruber, who also owns Fran’s wicker furniture store in Succasunna, as well as several other buildings in the township, was before the board in September because he’d filed a preliminary site-plan application in late 2023. The application sought the board's blessing of a plan to convert the old rink into a retail center.
But at the September meeting, Hefele said he realized, after becoming involved, that the application ‘didn’t make all that much sense’ without a tenant ready to go. Instead, he said, Gruber could just get renovation permits to spruce up the place, find a potential tenant and then seek site-plan approval from the planning board for the new business.
“It made more sense to find an actual tenant for this property, so our approach changed a little bit,” he told the board. “We can do it simply under building permits. Once we improve this piece of property, we intend to then tenant it. We have a number of potential tenants, including the owner himself.”
Hefele said Gruber was going to ask the board to “carry” the preliminary site-plan application for “a couple” of board meetings.
“In the interim, Mr. Gruber's probably going to start improving this piece of property, which it needs,” he said. “Then we will come back in front of this board with an actual tenant for a site-plan application that you can act on in terms of who we actually have as a tenant. I think that makes more sense.”
Indeed, the application remained on the board’s agendas, but was repeatedly postponed. It was next supposed to be discussed at the Dec. 10 meeting, but early last month Hefele sent a letter withdrawing it entirely.
“They kept postponing,” said Roxbury Planning Board Chairman Charles Bautz in an interview on Monday. “I told them, ‘Either pull it or move the application forward,’ but I don’t know why they pulled it.”
Reached by phone on Monday, Gruber said, “I can’t talk right now” and hung up. Messages left with Hefele and Roxbury Planning Board Attorney Tom Germinario were not immediately returned.
Spinning Its Wheels
The former roller rink, once a popular attraction, has been unoccupied for about four decades. A plan to convert it into a brewery was floated in 2019, but was scuttled. At the September meeting, several members of the board expressed fear the vacancy would continue.
“The property has been sitting for a long time with no improvement,” Bautz told Hefele. He said he wasn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of Gruber moving the wicker store into the Kenvil building, suggesting the current Fran’s store might then become vacant.
“There’s a trend of buildings that are dilapidated that are owned (by Gruber) and we would like to see some headway on basically a lot of that,” Bautz asserted.
At the meeting, Planning Board Member Ed Data cited “other eyesores this applicant has in town,” and Planning Board Member Bob DeFillippo said the board, and Roxbury residents, are tired of the lip service.
“Do you know how long it’s sat in that condition, how many people have complained about it, all the times the owner has been advised to clean up the property?" he asked. "There have been promises before. We've tried to get the building to look better, and we've gotten absolutely zero response from the owner.”
Hefele said he was aware “everybody is concerned” about the building’s fate, especially given its place in the heart of many longtime Roxbury residents.
“This property is a pivotal property in the town,” he said. “It’s been around for a long time. I got blisters on my feet in that roller rink. I understand. So that's why I think it's important that we take a step back here and find the right tenant first and then come into the board with that tenant and set this up that way.”
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