189,500-SF Shopping Complex Advanced for Morris County

BOONTON, NJ-Boonton Investors LLC, a development group based here, will roll out its plans tomorrow (Wednesday) night for a 189,500-sf, big box-anchored shopping complex in this northern Morris County community of some 10,000. The developer got an okay for its preliminary site plan about a year ago, and is now aiming to get final planning board approval to do the project.

The center would rise on a vacant 23-acre site formerly used by Pacific Vegetable Oil International. The company filed for bankruptcy a decade ago, shut down its operations shortly thereafter, and the site has been unused since. Drew Chemical utilized the site for many years prior to PVO’s occupancy.

Complicating matters for Boonton Investors is the fact that the tract is heavily polluted and needs remediation. Any development can’t proceed until the both the Department of Environmental Protection, both state and federal, sign off on it and proper permits are in place. Existing buildings on the site would be demolished to make way for the new shopping complex, under the developer’s plan