Neighbors and anybody interested in hearing plans for the redevelopment of a vacant commercial property at the corner of Fourth Street and Asbury Avenue are invited to a community meeting 10 a.m. Saturday (March 28) at Shiloh Baptist Church (Seventh Street and Simpson Avenue).
Second Ward Councilman Antwan McClellan encouraged citizens to attend during the City Council meeting on Thursday.
The meeting will provide information on plans to demolish the abandoned Palermo’s Family Market on the 400 block of Asbury Avenue and construct new duplexes in its place. Mick Duncan of Duncan Homes will be on hand to speak about the project, McClellan said.
City Council approved a change in August 2014 that rezoned the ocean side of Asbury Avenue between Fourth and Fifth streets (and two mixed-use lots across the street) for duplexes with 30-foot frontages. The area had been zoned for neighborhood business.
The market has been closed for five or six years, and the vacant commercial property deteriorated as it remained unsold. At the time of the zoning change, city officials said the Palermo’s tract likely would be replaced by 13 units, a single-family structure on a larger corner lot and six duplexes.
Neighbors of the Palermo property raised various objections to the proposal and process of zoning change during public comment in August 2014 — though none expressed a desire to keep the existing business zone that has left the property abandoned and blighted.
The family-owned neighborhood grocery (long known as Palermo’s Thriftway) opened at its currently location in the early 1950s. It began to close seasonally in the early 2000s and was permanently shuttered even before Superstorm Sandy in October 2012 flooded the property. It includes three vacant apartments on the upper floors.
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