Exciting things happening soon in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ you’ll need to check out
🏖 New $30-million redevelopment project taking shape in Point Pleasant Beach
🏖 There will be new apartments, hotels, businesses, restaurants and more
🏖 This will help grow the population and help save taxpayers money
The borough of Point Pleasant Beach is always a fun place to be year-round and it could soon start getting a little bit bigger and that means a few different things.
For the inside scoop on what's going on now and what's to come over the next few weeks, months, and years -- Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra joined us on Shore Time with Vin and Dave on 94.3 The Point sponsored by Shoreline Wealth Management on Sunday morning.
A $30-million-dollar redevelopment project is in the planning stages that would include turning vacant properties, particularly downtown, into store front businesses and year-round living set ups.
"It is a building boom in Point Pleasant Beach in terms of renovations and bringing buildings back to their character, and this $30-million project is kind of the crowning jewel of all of that," Kanitra said. "You look at a downtown and you say what's the recipe for success if you want to have people coming year-round, what's going to attract them."
Kanitra says they have great restaurants and shops people love to visit but not a marquee destination for lodging downtown.
Wyndham Hotels is just one of the developers looking to increase their footprint in the area while also maintaining the locally branded appearance.
"(They) looked at downtown Point Pleasant Beach and thought it would be perfect for what they call their trademark brand, and you don't even know it's a Wyndham when you go into this," Kanitra said.
"It's all locally branded, it says 'The Point'. It's only three stories, there's a lot of other buildings downtown that are already as tall, so it's not out of the character of Point Pleasant Beach. They focused on parking; we've got 71 parking spaces as part of it."
There's another developer working on plans for town homes and retail in the borough.
"It's just high end all the way around," Kanitra said.
More people are working remotely now so they want to provide more long-term lodging for anyone who'd like to live here.
As for the days they have to go in-person to their job, or, for people to just want to visit the borough, the train is right there.
"The New Jersey Transit lot is right there, so, it's going to create a lot of synergy because a lot of people in Point Pleasant Beach get on the train and go to Asbury Park," Kanitra said. "We think people will get on the train and come downtown and hang out. For the handful of people who are going to live there in these really nice town homes, that they're building, it gives them the ability to jump right on the train and commute to other places if they need to as well."
Growing Point Pleasant Beach as a family friendly destination year round
Kanitra expects the population of people and families living in the borough year-round to then grow over time.
"We're not looking to go vertical as a town and we're already built out," Kanitra said.
"There's a ceiling to who will be in Point Pleasant Beach and that's what the residents really want, but the more homes that you turn over that aren't party rentals or anything along those lines that go to year-round families, the more that they have one or two kids, they stick in the school system -- that makes a nice little difference."
He is hopeful to have the early stages of the project underway by the end of this year if all goes well.
Expected timeline for Point Pleasant Beach redevelopment project
"I'd love to have their (developers) approval process all done by the end of this year and groundbreaking done by the end of this year," Kanitra said. "These guys are motivated; they've got the funding to get the project done really quickly."
This is also a project that'll save the taxpayers some money over time too.
"In Point Pleasant Beach, we're trying to look for those opportunities where we can take blighted properties, increase the value of those, and realize the benefit," Kanitra said.
Taxpayers will save big time with this project
"The way that we've looked at this in terms of it being a $30-million project and how that's going to increase the value of these properties -- we only have a $15-million operating budget in Point Pleasant Beach to begin with and this is going to add around $400 thousand annually to our budget which will help us keep taxes down, which is a really, really big deal."
As part of the expected growth over time, there is the hope of an economic boost.
"When we crunch the numbers in terms of a 75-percent occupancy rate a the hotel and then the people that are going to be living in the town homes as well -- we anticipate close to $10 million a year of economic impact," Kanitra said.
You can listen to the full conversation we had with Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Paul Kanitra, right here.
