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A vacant field on a stretch of Cookman Avenue has puzzled many for years.

The land is filled with wooden stubs, giving the appearance of a field of wooden tombstones. Over time, people have painted various patterns and images on the stubs. There has also been public art displayed on the premises.

So what’s with those wooden things all over the field?

The answer to this mystery is a practical one: Those wooden stubs are pilings drilled deep into the ground to anchor the foundation of what was to be the next phase of townhouse development after the Wesley Grove project.

But the national housing bust ended that project, which the original developer of Wesley Grove, the Kushner Companies, planned to build. Wesley Grove was subsequently sold to Madison Marquette, which is also the lead boardwalk developer.

The field of the those faux wooden tombstones is currently owned by master redeveloper Asbury Partners. And according to Asbury Partner’s Brian Cheripka, those pilings are still useful and it would make no sense to remove them.

“They are good pilings for the future use and development of the parcel,” Cheripka said. “Eventually, the pilings are cut down and concrete foundation goes on top of them.”

Cheripka said that the pilings are drilled into the ground at various depths depending on the geology underneath. They are designed to stabilize the load bearing structures built on top. “There’s actually a map of the pilings to show how deep each are drilled,” he said.

The piling were installed about seven years ago, according to city manager Terry Reidy. That was before Madison Marquette came to Asbury Park. The pilings also precede Cheripka, whose company  — iStar Financial — took over Asbury Partners in 2010 when the former ownership of the redeveloper could not repay loans made by iStar.

Cheripka said Asbury Partners has no immediate plans to touch the pilings. “It’s not worth it to cut them down and gravel it over and put topsoil there at this point.”

Asbury Partners, however, has installed a 3-4 foot wide walkway through the parcel to allow people to walk across the land.

The project that was planned for the site received site plan approval in 2004 and called for 55 townhouse units, according to the Asbury Park director of planning and redevelopment Donald Sammet. The project was known as Phase II of Wesley Grove, and it initially stalled over the purchase of two adjacent parcels, one of which is the vacant board of education building on Cookman Avenue, Sammet said.

Meanwhile, today the parcel’s northern edge is part of a streetscape program for Cookman Avenue and some nearby streets. That project — undertaken by Asbury Parters at the company’s expense — targets the largely vacant stretch of Cookman between the downtown and the beachfront. Asbury Partners is installing new sidewalks and curbing, lighting and landscaping, as well as demolishing and clearing dilapidated structures.

The cost of the streetscape project will exceed $500,000, Cheripka has said. The goal is to encourage pedestrian traffic between the downtown business district and the waterfront.

For more photos of the “wooden tombstones” click here for a photo album on the Sun’s Facebook page.

 

 

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