Royal Farms Approved For Former Jersey Paddler Site In Brick

BRICK, NJ — Move over, Wawa and Quick Chek, there's a new store coming to town. And it's bringing fried chicken.

The Brick Township Board of Adjustment approved the application Wednesday night to build a Royal Farms at the site of the former Jersey Paddler store at the intersections of Routes 70 and 88 in Brick. It would be just the sixth store in New Jersey for the chain, which has 188 stores currently most of them in Maryland and Virginia.

The 4,649-square-foot store and fuel canopy with eight gasoline pumps was unanimously approved after some modifications were made to the site's proposed signs and to add irrigation to landscaping beds. The site required 13 variances, though some of them were due to the shape of the property and the fact that it fronts on three streets — Routes 70 and 88 and Olden Street.

The driveways on Route 70 and 88 will be maintained, and a third driveway will be added onto Olden Street, which will allow drivers to turn in to the drive from either direction on Olden, but will be right-turn only leaving the site.

Brian Boccanfuso, the board engineer, expressed concerns about the effects of the store on traffic, particularly for people making a left turn from Olden Street onto Route 70, where a jughandle gives drivers access to the Home Depot on Olden. Currently drivers may have to wait a few minutes to make the turn, because there is no dedicated green for left turns — meaning drivers have to wait for traffic coming from the jughandle to clear.

The traffic engineer for Royal Farms said the state Department of Transportation told him there already are plans in process to change the light and put in a dedicated left-turn green from Olden to Route 70. The timing on when that project will happen was unclear.

Though the site is expected to generate some traffic "because people are going to come just for the chicken," Board Chairman Harvey Langer said, concerns about increased traffic are solely under the jurisdiction of the state DOT for the site, because it fronts on two state highways.

Royal Farms will be making improvements to pedestrian access at the Route 88/Olden Street intersection, adding pedestrian buttons to allow people to cross safely and ADA-compliant curbs. There also will be sidewalks installed around the site.

Three large trees that are on the site will be taken down, but the site plan includes landscaping with shrubs and trees and a rain garden. The rain garden's purpose is to help collect and control stormwater runoff, and allow it to percolate into the ground. Royal Farms professionals testified the company pays a landscaping service to come in and maintain its landscaping to keep it in good shape, but the company agreed to install sprinklers at the township's request to ensure the plants were properly watered.

"We can't expect to be East Seattle all the time," Township Planner Tara Paxton said.

The company also compromised on the sizes of signs at the site. Royal Farms initially sought signs that were to be 25 feet high and about 150 square feet — nearly twice as high and three times as large as what's permitted under the ordinance. After some discussion, the company agreed to reduce the height of the sign on Route 70 to 20 feet and the one on Route 88 to 15 feet, and to reduce the size to roughly 106 square feet on each.

"The town has been consciously addressing signs through the ordinance for a while," Paxton said. "They want to reduce the clutter along the road."

Royal Farms has been in existence since 1959, and boast that it serves "real fresh food real fast," with its fried chicken being well-known among those who travel through Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The five existing Royal Farms stores in New Jersey are in the southern part of the state; the Brick site will be the first at the Jersey Shore.

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Royal Farms site plan presented at the Brick Township Board of Adjustment on Sept. 12. The green areas are proposed landscaping at the site. Photo by Karen Wall, Patch staff