BellCrest Plaza Suffers Amid Vacancies

After losing Blockbuster, Foodtown and various other stores at BellCrest Plaza in Toms River, the remaining tenants in the Fischer Boulevard strip mall question their own longevity in the area. 

"It's been horrible," said Eddie Testa, owner of , which has been in its BellCrest location for more than 15 years.

"We've had no traffic. The Foodtown didn't help me, but it didn't hurt me. When Blockbuster left, it crushed us."

Testa said his business thrived on Blockbuster customers walking over to Chicken Town after renting a movie for the night.

"We still have business from loyal customers, but we're probably down by 25 percent."

The national chain of Blockbuster closed many of its stores amid declining sales, and the Fischer Boulevard location is one of 1,000 other sites to close. The Norkus-owned Foodtown's final days in BellCrest were June 2010.

Chicken Town has three years left on its lease at BellCrest, and Testa said if the landlord doesn't negotiate its terms with him, he'll consider leaving for another location on Fischer Boulevard.

"If my lease comes up, my rent will be so high that if they don't bargain, then we'll have to leave," he said. "There's so many empty places on Fischer Boulevard – I'd move now, but I'm stuck."

H. Hovnanian Industries is the owner-landlord of BellCrest Plaza, and the company maintains its dedication to development in the area:  "We are very committed to the site," said Chad Warnken, director of development at Hovnanian. "The supermarket left in the middle of the night with time left on the lease, so we did not have the opportunity to react as quickly and search for someone to go into the space. We have been working to try to get a replacement tenant – but we would have liked to have something lined up at the time" of Foodtown's departure, Warnken said.

"We've lost a ton of business," said Jerome Franklin, owner of Buma's Bubbles. The laundromat at BellCrest has been a long-time tenant, but Franklin purchased the business and signed a five-year contract two years ago.

Franklin said most of his business came from Foodtown shoppers. He said the employees at Foodtown used to do their laundry at Buma's, and people that shopped at the food store would venture over after shopping. 

"It's the economy," he said. "But we need foot traffic from a major store to bring people in." Toms River Mayor Thomas Kelaher attributed the recent closings to good old-fashioned competition. "It's probably because ShopRite is right across the street. I'm sure that's what happened on Fischer Boulevard."

Foodtown was in BellCrest for more than 40 years – while ShopRite has been  across the street since the 1990s. Blockbuster's lease was set to expire in June 2012, according to a January Costar newsletter.

"Now they don't have big-name stores generating traffic," Kelaher said. "And once they lose an anchor store, then it hurts everyone else in the place."

Kelaher called the closings "bad for the community." He said the landlord still has to pay real estate taxes, and if the landlord gives in to foreclosure, then there might be an impact on the town.

"We are in various negotiations with various folks" to move into the plaza, Warnken said, however he said he could not reveal the names of the potential tenants.

"We're looking to amp it up, and we've been dealing with those, but we are also in the process of engaging a national commercial broker — not only to fill the anchor tenants, but fill all the space."