Englewood council to discuss James Street redevelopment plan Tuesday

ENGLEWOOD The latest proposal in the drawn-out debate over redeveloping James Street as part of a planned ShopRite expansion calls for new homes with granite countertops and designer faucets, but a city official said Monday those arent the details residents care about.

ELIZABETH LARA / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A home sits on James Street in Englewood.

Councilman Eugene Skurnick said the rezoning and redevelopment plan to be discussed Tuesday night at a council work session leaves unanswered who will be responsible for maintaining the buffer between the homes and the supermarket and what will be done with the blight on the other side of James Street.

Im really surprised they havent presented much, much more, said Skurnick, who represents the ward in which James Street is located.

The city and ShopRite owner Irving Glass have been negotiating for more than a year over the plan to replace boarded-up and run-down homes on the east side of James Street in exchange for his being allowed to add on to the supermarket.

Glass real estate development company, and some city officials, want to expand Englewoods commercial zone into the back yards of eight James Street houses. The application before the Planning Board also seeks to change the shape of the lots, allowing 40 more parking spaces and at least an 11,000 square feet addition to the back of his supermarket.

In return, Glass would agree to raze the boarded-up homes and build three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath houses on 6,500-square-foot lots south of Tallman Place. Four homes south of James Court could be torn down immediately; Glass has yet to buy the other four homes, which would allow a 22,000-square-foot expansion of the supermarket.

He has a separate application before the Planning Board to build three houses on vacant lots he owns on the west side of James Street.

Some residents have criticized the plan, fearing the three-bedroom homes could turn into the illegal boardinghouses that the existing homes became before being boarded up. Those homes, residents say, became magnets for drug dealers and eyesores that violated building codes and were fire hazards one burned to the ground two years ago.

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Englewood council to discuss James Street redevelopment plan Tuesday