Route 70 Wawa Application Hearing Set To Resume In Brick

BRICK, NJ — The Brick Township Board of Adjustment is scheduled to resume hearing an application that would add access to the Route 70 Wawa and Panera site from North Lake Shore Drive.

The hearing is anticipated to focus on a scaled-back proposal by Brick 70 Developers LLC for an entrance only from North Lake Shore Drive. At the June hearing on the application, attorney John Jackson submitted an amendment to the application after about two hours of testimony that focused on the exit portion of the application.

The hearing is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Brick Township municipal building, 401 Chambers Bridge Road.

Brick 70 Developers is seeking to add a driveway that allows access to the Wawa and Panera from North Lake Shore Drive to draw more customers into the stores. Its traffic engineer testified in June that the company believes traffic at the two stores is low is because of the lack of access from North Lake Shore Drive.

The zoning board has focused heavily on the potential traffic impact of a driveway because of traffic concerns in that area already. North Lake Shore Drive connects to a short piece of Duquesne Boulevard that intersects Route 70 across from the Target shopping center.

Residents have complained about traffic in the area for years, and complained extensively in 2016 and 2017 about the initial proposal for the Wawa, which included the access to North Lake Shore Drive.

That original application was rejected in March 2017 in large part because of the concerns about the impact of the proposed access to North Lake Shore Drive. After some revisions, the amended application by Brick 70 Developers that removed the North Lake Shore Drive access was approved in December 2017.