Camino: Real?

Down on North Avenue Saturday, a contractor named Carlos beamed as he pointed out buildings he said would soon be acquired by the Arkad Group. He was working on one already owned by Mario Camino's firm and he knew that its location in the North Avenue Historic District would require replacing its wooden windows with the same.

That might have been one up on Landmark, Frank Cretella's development company. Even though Cretella has been involved with the historic district since 2006, in February a representative of the company apologized to the HPC commissioners after the fact for installing vinyl windows in a building next door. The commissioners were hearing four Cretella applications that night and all had to be carried to future meetings for lack of needed details..

That's perhaps why the Courier News article published today on Arkad's big plans for the downtown came like a bolt from the blue. Camino's vision parallels the same blocks for which Cretella has been the city's main hope for most of the past decade.

"Dueling developers," a North Avenue merchant quipped Saturday.

A duel or a race?

While Cretella's city projects appear to be dragging, Camino seems intent on seizing the baton.

As someone who tries to follow the land use boards closely, I was unfamiliar with Arkad Group and will now have to pay all the more attention.

As described in the news article, Arkad has acquired the former bank building at 107-117 Park Avenue and plans offices and a restaurant in the existing space, plus a rooftop addition for apartments. It's half a block from the PNC Bank building, where Cretella dropped plans for a rooftop lounge with a shallow pool.

Cretella's plan in 2006 was to acquire buildings in the North Avenue Historic District, preserve the facades, and build higher behind them, something Camino is similarly proposing now. Many will be watching to see how it goes, now that the city is emphasizing downtown transit-oriented development. Zoning changes will permit more intensive housing by the main train station on North Avenue, and the city is seeking a transit village designation.

While wending his way through Plainfield's sometimes onerous gamut of approvals, Cretella has not been sitting on his hands. Maybe there is not yet a French bistro on the ground floor of the refurbished "Courier News" building on Park Avenue, but Cretella, owner of the prestigious Stone House restaurant in Warren, has also acquired the Ryland Inn in Whitehouse Station and Hotel du Village in New Hope. One of his frustrations in Plainfield has been the need for a liquor license or two for his hospitality projects here.

With a new mayor and administration anticipated in January, residents are hopeful that the Queen City will have another chance for a renaissance. When Mayor Albert T. McWilliams left office in December 2005, there was a full roster of development projects. Over the past eight years, Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs brought forward several others.So far, only The Monarch, a 63-unit condo development, has been built and now it is largely rental units. Cretella's projects have yielded 12 apartments and Paramount Assets, which owns 45 downtown storefronts, has also developed apartments on Park Avenue.

Now that we have been introduced to Mario Camino by the Courier News, he's likely to get a royal welcome from Plainfielders who agree with his vision of success for the city. Maybe a 2014 "Year in Review" will come off better than what we can report for 2013.

Links: "Queen City Revival"
          Arkad Group


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