The Peapack-Gladstone Land Use Board voted on Wednesday, Nov. 20, to approve a proposal to convert the former FinPro office building on Route 206 into a storage facility and to add a second building for five low-cost housing units.
PEAPACK-GLADSTONE – A former office building at 158 Route 206 would be converted to a self-storage facility while a five-unit affordable housing building would be constructed on the same property under plans approved by the Land Use Board on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
The applicant, Mellilo Equities, LLC, of Gladstone, received preliminary and final site plan approval to redevelop the 10.7-acre property, which includes the former FinPro building on the highway’s east side opposite the Delta gas station.
The existing three-story, 38,919-square-foot building would be roughly doubled in size to become a five-level, 91,873-square-foot building for self-storage.
The stately brick facade facing Route 206 would remain while the T extension in the rear would be demolished and replaced with a 40,000-square-foot addition. With the rear grounds sloping downward, more levels would be exposed in the back.
An existing parking area to the north of the building would be used to construct a two-story residential building that would house five income-restricted rental apartments.
They would include one one-bedroom, three two-bedroom and one three-bedroom units.
The units would help the borough meet its state-mandated “Round III” obligation to provide 78 affordable housing units through 2025.
Also, the parking would be reconfigured. With less parking demand expected, the number of parking spaces would be reduced from 115 now to 28, shrinking the coverage – the amount of land covered by buildings and pavement – from 19.2 percent to 15.9 percent.
The existing driveway with Route 206 will remain and the parking circulation will be largely unchanged.
Mellilo Equities touted the project on its web site.
“The absence of self-storage facilities in smaller, historically sensitive boroughs such as Peapack & Gladstone is a common issue,” it said.
“For years local market demand has far outweighed supply – largely due to zoning which did not anticipate the need,” it added. “As a result, residents and businesses must now travel more than 20 minutes to access the nearest storage facility.”
The former Fin Pro building, constructed in 1986, was once owned by Pfizer Corp. and was the rented headquarters for Peapack-Gladstone Bank, which relocated to Hills Drive in Bedminster Township in the spring of 2010.
Pfizer sold the site in November 2014 to Bernards Township Donald Musso who owned FinPro, a managing and consulting firm. By 2018, with the office market slumping, Musso began to seek alternative uses for the building.
In July 2020, Musso received Land Use Board approval to expand the building to 45,469 square feet and convert its walkout basement, second and third floors to accommodate 21 residential units, of which five were to be income-restricted.
FinPro was to remain on the first floor but whenever it chose to depart, the space was to be converted into another seven residential units, for a total of 28.
The plans, however, were never executed.
In April 2022, the Borough Council unveiled changes to its “Round III” affordable housing compliance plan. The changes included modifying the FinPro approval to allow the conversion to self-storage and the construction of a separate building for five income-restricted apartments.
Then-Mayor Gregory Skinner said that self-storage facilities are “not used a lot” and were unlikely to generate much traffic.