Hightstown's borough council and planning board are having a joint meeting Monday night
HIGHTSTOWN -- The public will get its first glimpse next week at a developer's plans to breathe new life into Hightstown's long-neglected rug mill site.
The borough council and planning board are having a joint meeting Monday night to discuss the concept plan.
Over the years, several attempts to redevelop the site have failed, but there was renewed hope for the property in April when Eddy Chow, president of TUSA Products, closed on the sale.
His company already owned the warehouse portion of the 7-acre site, but he and three corporate partners bought the entire property from John Wolfington, a developer who acquired it for $3.2 million about a decade ago.
A redevelopment agreement is still being negotiated, but the prospective developer is R. Black Global, a New York-based real estate company, borough administrator Henry Underhill said.
In its heyday, the one-time mill employed a good portion of the borough's residents and spanned almost the entire length of Bank Street. It was sold in the 1960s to Philips Lighting Co., a manufacturer of light bulbs, which shut down the complex in 1987.
A redevelopment plan for the site, amended by the borough in April, calls for a mixed-use approach that includes artist lofts, work studios and a sit-down restaurant.
Underhill said representatives from the developer's team will present the plan Monday.
"It's a very preliminary thing depending on the agreement and everything else falling into line ... but there's a strong public interest about what happens at the mill and we wanted to get the info out early," he said. "People can get a sense of the scope and the type of project that we're talking about."
The developer would still have to go before the planning board at a later date for site plan approval.
Monday's meeting starts at 7 p.m. in Firehouse Hall, 140 N. Main Street, Hightstown.
Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.