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Native tree species will be placed where palm trees once provided shelter from the sun in the “Summer Experience” shaded hammock garden, previously the site of the Vive sales trailer.

The Asbury Park planning board Monday gave unanimous approval for master waterfront redeveloper iStar Financial to swap out the palms, which they had trucked up from Florida last year.

The palm trees [shown at right after they were first planted] were removed because they were not native to the area and would not last over the course of the winter, said James Rhatican, attorney for iStar.

“Most people loved it, some people thought it was wasteful because the trees are not indigenous,” said Thomas Bauer, landscape architect for iStar.

This summer, and for as long as the Summer Experience is in operation, 25 shade trees and flowering trees will replace the 36 palms that were placed on the site last year.

Varieties will include pin oak, Chanticleer pears, and sugar maple trees, Bauer said. The smaller landscape elements and grasses that are currently on the site will remain.

The developer had plans to remove the palms, store them in a greenhouse over the winter and replant them but the trees died before they could be extracted and the measure proved cost prohibitive, Bauer said. As a condition of approval the developer must transplant the native trees when approval for the Summer Experience ends and the lot is developed.

The tree and shaded hammock garden is just one part of an initiative by iStar to enhance the summer experience for visitors to the beach by also offering various amenities.

IStar is the majority owner of master waterfront redeveloper Asbury Partners.

The lot is located along the Asbury Park waterfront, on the block bound by Cookman and Lake avenues, St. James Place and Wesley Lake Drive.

[Image at top taken from the Asbury Park Waterfront website.]

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