By DON STINE
Infrastructure improvements along Kingsley Street in Asbury Park are on schedule and should be completed by Memorial Day weekend – at least that is what city officials are hoping.
“I have asked at every recent (council) meeting if the project is on schedule and the answer has always been yes,” Mayor John Moor said recently. “Everybody feels it is on target and should be done by Memorial Day weekend.”
Moor said both he and the council has tried to stay on top of the project and he notes that there is a full-time person overseeing it to make sure it is completed on time.
Most of Kingsley Street from First to Sunset Avenues is under some kind of infrastructure improvement and heavy equipment, concrete piping, and other materials can be seen throughout the blocks-long project.
iStar Residential, the city’s oceanfront redeveloper, is conducting infrastructure improvements along the waterfront, including work taking place on Kingsley Street. The infrastructure work includes installation of new sanitary and storm sewer systems, relocation of overhead electrical utility lines underground, new curbs and sidewalks, repaving and striping of roadways, planting of new street trees, and installation of benches and trash receptacles.
“This work will not only help accelerate redevelopment along the waterfront but will have a long-term benefit for Asbury Park. We are working hard to complete as much work as possible prior to the start of the 2015 summer season,” said Brian Cheripka, iStar’s Senior Vice President of Land and Development.
Moor said that this type of work cannot be done during the winter.
“So there is a small window of opportunity to do the work and that is why (the project) is monitored closely,” he said.
