Written by NANCY SHIELDS , STAFF WRITER
ASBURY PARK - The owner of the former Metropolitan Hotel site on Asbury Avenue plans to build a six-story, 98-unit residence that would adopt many of the architectural features of the landmark white building that was razed in March 2008.
In a presentation to the City Council this past week, owner Donald Cresitello, a formerMorristown mayor, said he does not yet have funding in hand, but will get city approvals first.
"The financial people say there's money available for apartments - I had hoped for condos," Cresitello said Wednesday night.
Cresitello bought the vacant 180-room Spanish revival-style hotel in 1993, but never developed the building before it was declared an eminent hazard and torn down three years ago.
The developer's architect, Anthony Gianforcaro, showed plans Wednesday night for one- and two-bedroom units, a two-story lobby, a rooftop patio, an enclosed pool and a recreation area.
Cresitello will need approval to increase the height from four to six stories and to provide 1 1/2 parking spaces per residential unit instead of two.
Donald Sammet, the city director of planning and redevelopment, said both of those changes are permitted on the waterfront. The property, on the 300 block of Asbury Avenue, is close to both the beach and the downtown.
Cresitello said some of the units will be summer homes, and the others will be for year-round residents. He plans to have 34 two-bedroom units, 56 one-bedroom, seven luxury two-bedroom and a top-floor penthouse.
If he gets financing for condominiums, Cresitello said the pricing as of now would be $475,000 for a one-bedroom, $550,000 to $575,000 for a two-bedroom, and in the $600,000s for the luxury two-bedrooms.
The plan calls for an automated parking garage where cars are parked automatically in a sublevel parking space where residents themselves would not enter.
The Planning Board will hear the proposal next.
The hotel closed in 1987, when Martin and Sylvia Weinblatt, whose family had owned it since 1945, sold the property for $2.25 million to Jersey City developers Karim and Gomaa el-Said, at a time when a then-massive waterfront plan was taking off. Ultimately, those plans went nowhere.
The new owners filed for bankruptcy a year later. In 1992, a Texas developer contracted to buy the hotel for $600,000 from the American Savings and Loan bank and convert it into senior citizen apartments, but never got financing.
The bank eventually sold the Metropolitan in June 1993 for $10,150 to a company, 309 Park Corp., which sold it the next month to Cresitello's company for $150,000.
Cresitello initially sought to convert the hotel into a congregate care facility of one-bedroom apartments and efficiencies for middle-income residents or the elderly. But the Morristown developer and city soon clashed when the owners sought to open a 40-unit annex as a daily or weekly motel to get cash while moving forward with their larger plans.
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