Ideal Tile will move HQ from Howell to Millstone
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

MILLSTONE - Ideal Tile will be the first business in the Riverside Center commercial subdivision on Route 33.

An application for preliminary and final site plan approval for a 94,500-square-foot warehouse/storage area, a 4,000-square-foot showroom and 4,000 square feet of administrative space received unanimous approval from the Planning Board at its June 13 meeting.

Mario Grillo, president of the company, told the board that Ideal Tile has 30 stores in New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Massachusetts, Con-necticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

The company is currently headquartered on Route 9 in Howell, but the administrative offices will eventually be moved to Millstone, he said.

Grillo said the Millstone building will be a distribution center with no retail traffic. The warehouse will have 20 employees and the office will have about seven employees, he said.

The showroom will be more of a reference area for store managers, not an area for the public, according to Grillo. The warehouse will operate from Monday to Friday, he said, while the office will be open Monday through Saturday. Every three months there will be a Sunday meeting of about 30 store managers in the office, he said.

The applicant's attorney, William Mehr, said the business will operate from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Granite and tile will be loaded onto trucks by machines that come out of the building, he said.

Planning Board Chairman Mitchell Newman asked if truck idling could be avoided during the loading and unloading period.

Mehr said his client's product has no need for refrigeration, so there is no reason for trucks to run while they are in the loading dock. The trucks may stay in the parking lot overnight, he added.

Jay Troutman, the applicant's traffic engineer, said that when he did the original traffic impact study for the subdivision, he believed there would be 55 peak-hour morning trips from the facility and 56 peak-hour evening trips. He said he now thinks the number of trips may have been overstated.

Greg Clark, the project's architect, said the building would be constructed in earth-tone colors, and he displayed the stucco blocks that would be used in construction. Granite panels in front of the buildings will be used as a decorative element, he said.

The building complies with all ordinances in terms of height and floor area ratio, Clark said.