BRICK, NJ-After an 18-month delay, construction will finally commence for the Marketplace at Brick, a 288,000-sf shopping center on Route 70 here. “We anticipate starting construction within the next 30 to 60 days,” says Joe Morris, VP of leasing for Piscataway, NJ-based Edgewood Properties. Edgewood subsidiary JSM at Brick LLC is the developer, and Morris notes that major tenants will be able to move in sometime in 2008.

JSM at Brick received final approvals for the project in 2005, but the project stalled when the New Jersey Department of Transportation expressed concerned about the possible increase in traffic on Route 70. “It was the DOT's concern that there would be a lot of traffic and that the site as it was configured, was problematic,” Morris says.

JSM solved the problem by obtaining access to neighboring Shorrock St. and building an access road between the shopping center and Shorrock. “Shorrock was a key issue for DOT because that eliminated the need to reconfigure the existing traffic signal at Route 70,” Morris says. “It alleviated some of the pressure on that intersection by allowing pedestrians to access the site via Shorrock.”