Meandering w/ Mark Matthews: Bottom Dollar Blueprints and Road Changes
Monday, January 24, 2011
A busy Saturday led to a lazy Sunday. So as I sit here hiding from the cold by watching the football playoffs and countless random shows… the laptop ends up in front of me and the aimless web surfing begins. Which leads me to a short blog on the new Bottom Dollar Store, and a few upcoming road projects of interest... information derived from obsessive Googling.
Bottom Dollar Mechanicals
Based on a very recently posted “Request for Proposal”, it looks like things should start happening soon at the old Heim’s supermarket. Mechanical contractor Costa and Rihl has posted full mechanical blue prints for the new Bottom Dollar Supermarket and retail stores, requesting contractor bids.
Two separate drawings, one for the store and one for the retail stores are available. It looks to be a straight line configuration, with the main store in the middle, two smaller stores on the left, and three more stores on the right.
As this is just for mechanicals (Heating, Air), there is no site plan to indicate how the stores will be positioned in the lot.
Two things grabbed my attention. As noted previously, Bottom Dollar Stores have walk-in produce refrigeration units to keep the produce fresh. A nice feature for a discount grocer.
Second, there is an area indicated for “Future Beer Cases”. An interesting idea, but it makes
Rt 42 South Widening
Admit it... no matter how long you've been driving, its still a little intimidating pulling on to Rt 42 south during rush hour. You have to accelerate at a good rate, while finding an open slot to pull into a very congested road. And then if you are heading onto Rt 55, it seems as soon as you are moving left onto 42 you are going right to get off.
Well, NJDOT has apparently broken off a small chunk of their large Bellmawr area road projects to rectify this smaller problem. We will be getting a 5th lane on Rt 42 south starting at the Leaf Rd Bellmawr entrance, heading down 42 and over the turnpike bridge to the Rt 55 exit. January 2011 is projected to be when the project is "advertised"
This past November, the State's Department of Environmental Protection approved a land use permit, eliminating a big hurdle to this project. The permit indicates it was needed for grading and paving... apparently in the Big Timber Creek area.
The planned advertisement also indicates they want to get this done before the start of the much larger road projects. I assume this will help traffic flow more readily as they adjust lanes during the I-295 Direct Connection project.
In related news, the SNJ.com, an area business leaders site, ran a survey asking the region's head honchos what the most important transportation project is. Topping them all, is the Missing Moves project, which will connect the Southern part of 295 with Rt42 (To and from Atlantic City). As of last year there was still no definitive plan for the Missing Moves, and the developer of the landfill project said the state's indecisveness was the biggest delay for the Bellmawr Waterfront project.
Benigno Boulevard Intersection
Also listed on the planned advertisments page, is a notice that in March the NJDOT intends to advertise for bids on a project to rebuild the Benigno Blvd / Black Horse Pike intersection. Simply, there are a significant number of trucks using this intersection, and it is not currently engineered to support the wide turns they need to make. Additional problems come from the placement of the motel driveways.
The best description of the project seems to come from a community meeting notice from several years ago. An interesting aspect is they plan on moving the intersection 50ft north to provide the needed space, so that has to mean the building (former gas station?) on the corner has to go?
Xtra Gas Station
A real short add-on... the Xtra gas station which I wrote about at the end of 2010, is now officially gone. Well, when i drove by last week the building was gone, the lot mostly cleared, and only the pump awning remained. We're all happy to see this eye-sore go away.
