Planning board approves Restoration Hardware's scaled-back Abbey redevelopment with conditions and monitoring

The Morris Township Planning Board voted to approve Restoration Hardware's amended site plan for the Abbey redevelopment after hearing testimony and receiving documentation from the applicant's legal, design and engineering teams. The application reduces the previously approved scale of the project, concentrates parking on-site, and removes previously proposed valet/tandem and some off-site parking arrangements. The board granted redevelopment-plan deviations with conditions intended to mitigate neighborhood impacts.

Applicant presentation and justification

Counsel for the applicant (Sales, Comas and Gross, speaking through attorney Vitola) and RH's witnesses told the board the project had been scaled down after construction cost escalation made the previously approved plan infeasible. Jared Stuhl, RH's chief real estate and development officer, said the reductions "were really all based with the intent of maintaining the architectural integrity and the design integrity, however, reducing the scale down from an operational perspective"

Civil engineer Afton Sabitz (Stonefield Engineering) presented plans showing the revised building footprint, parking layout and stormwater design. She testified the project now proposes 108 parking spaces on-site (with EV-ready spaces provided), removes tandem parking previously contemplated, increases setbacks from adjacent property lines in several locations, and reduces impervious coverage by approximately 7,000…