By Carly Baldwin, Patch Staff — Middletown is currently making plans to open a new park/parking area, to be located at the corner of Navesink River Road and Hubbard Avenue, and next door to River Plaza Elementary School.
That is currently a vacant lot. It is owned by Middletown Township.
The park will tentatively be called Koleda Park, but the Township is still working on the name, said Middletown Business Administrator Anthony Mercantante.
"The primary benefit of this park is to provide safe parking and better access for two of the Township's major water-based recreation areas, Shadow Lake and Poricy Pond," said Mercantante on Monday. "Both are popular for fishing and boating (small boats). Neither place has much public access, mainly because there is nowhere to safely park near them."
The Township plans to convert the currently empty lot into a parking area, and may possibly add a playground there. A parking area will also allow for better traffic flow in and out of River Plaza Elementary, especially at drop-off and pick-up times.
"We would also provide an access driveway to Navesink River Road," Mercantante explained. "Once we are able to do so, we can make the driveway available to the school for exiting and entering of school traffic at peak hours. This will allow traffic to disperse much more safely and efficiently than it can now and will eliminate a great deal of congestion. Pedestrian safety, particularly for school children, will also be enhanced greatly."
There is no immediate opening for Koleda Park, or even a date set, and funding is still being secured for the project.
The entire project is expected to cost about $1 million, and Middletown's local congressman, Rep. Chris Smith (R) requested $800,000 in federal funding to help pay for it.
Middletown says that once it builds a parking area there, it will encourage the state of New Jersey to start trout stocking in Shadow Lake again, which it stopped doing about ten years ago.
People who fish in Shadow Lake and Poricy Pond will no longer have to park on side streets.
If Middletown builds public parking there, it will show the state Dept. of Environmental Protection that Middletown is making an effort to make this a publicly used recreational area.
"We are hopeful that making this parking available will get the state to re-institute trout stocking of Shadow Lake, which was terminated more than a decade ago," explained Mercantante. "This property lies about equal distance between the two (Shadow Lake and Poricy). Both are within walking distance."
He wanted to emphasis this will not just be a parking area; it will also be a public park. Its design has just not been finalized at this time.
"We have not made a final decision about further amenities like possibly a playground or basketball court," he said.
Middletown will "convert the vacant lot into useful community space," said Congressman Smith.
Mercantante also said there is "some" soil contamination at the site that has to be mitigated before it can be turned into a park.
That lot used to be owned by the Koleda family, who were longtime property owners in Middletown. Middletown Twp. now owns that lot. There used to be two homes and a greenhouse on the parcel.
The Koleda family used to own the land on which River Plaza Elementary sits; they sold it to the Middletown school district in the early 1920s.