7-Eleven Proposal in Finderne Will Be Decided in October

The Zoning Board of Adjustment will not decide until October the fate of a plan to build a 7-Eleven at one of the township’s busiest intersections.

Traffic was the focus of the board’s Tuesday hearing on the application as a 7-Eleven expert explained that the store would not generate a significant amount of new traffic and would have a minimal impact, if any, on the intersection of East Main Street and Finderne Avenue.

However, board members expressed concerns about the safety of allowing left turns out of the convenience store onto westbound Main Street, a maneuver that would require crossing three lanes of traffic.

Board members also doubted the expert’s conclusion that making a left turn from Finderne Avenue into the 7-Eleven would not back up traffic.

The 7-Eleven is proposed for the southwestern corner of East Main Street and Finderne Avenue next to McCarthy’s restaurant and across Finderne Avenue from Burger King.

Plans call for the current building on the site – which used to house an auto repair business – to be demolished and replaced with a one-story, 3,005-square foot building. The retail space of the store will be 1,995 square feet.

The property on the corner also has a building that used to contain a check-cashing service and a Meineke Muffler shop. That building will remain but no tenants have yet to be found.

Project engineer Robert Freud said that 7-Eleven met with township and Somerset County officials on July 29 to work out the details of the driveways into the site and the parking.

Two parking spaces have been eliminated from the plan, Freud said, to create easier access for a weekly 7-Eleven delivery truck and to allow more landscaping. That would reduce the number of parking spaces to 16.

The weekly delivery truck, which would first stop at the 7-Eleven on Route 206 in Hillsborough, would enter off northbound Finderne Avenue, park in front of the store at off-peak hours, then exit onto westbound Main Street on its way to the 7-Eleven in Somerville. Freud said that the truck would have to back up a little from where it would be parked so it could maneuver through the Main Street exit.

”I’m glad I’m not driving that truck,” board member Donald Sweeney quipped.

In a change from the original plan, Freud said, there will only be one in-and-out driveway on Finderne Avenue, a suggestion that had been made by board members at the initial hearing. A second driveway at the south end of the property would only be an exit, he said.

”This is a significant improvement to what is there now,” Freud said.

That conclusion was endorsed by traffic engineer Joseph Staiger. “I think we have the optimal plan,” he said.

Staiger said that the 7-Eleven, because of the nature of its business, would not generate a significant amount of additional traffic. He said that about 90 percent of the people going to 7-Eleven are “pass-bys,” people who are going or returning from work who are stopping only to buy a few items. A new office building, he said, would generate more new traffic.

Staiger said most of the traffic to convenience stores comes from people making right turns and only a small minority make left turns into convenience stores.

Staiger said about 100 motorists would be stopping at the store during the morning rush between 7 and 9 a.m. and about 80 in the afternoon rush between 4 and 6 p.m.

County and 7-Eleven studies have found that the peak-hour traffic volume on Finderne Avenue is twice than the volume on Main Street, he said.
 
 Though 7-Eleven will not create any more traffic, the store has agreed to pay $8,000 in a traffic impact contribution to fund other road improvements in the area, Staiger said.

Making left turns from the store onto westbound Main Street “are not going to be easy,” he said, but they will be safe.

Testimony on the applicant will continue on Oct. 1.