Toms River: Troubled Route 37 Pine Rest Motel shuts down

TOMS RIVER - A troubled Toms River motel has shut down after it was cited for numerous code violations by the township's Quality of Life Task Force, Code Enforcement Officer John Winton said.

The 28-room Pine Rest Motel is located at 3226 Route 37 W., not far from the Thomas J. Mathis and J. Stanley Tunney bridges, which bring traffic to Seaside Heights and from the barrier island.

The motel was deemed uninhabitable on April 12, after members of the township's Quality of Life Task Force visited the site.

Toms River police Officer Travis Seaman said he and other members of the task force responded to the motel after Pine Rest residents called police to complain that they had no electricity.

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Seaman said Jersey Central Power & Light Co. had shut off the electricity to three occupied cabins on the Pine Rest property on April 9. The Pine Rest includes a traditional two-story motel, located closest to Route 37, and several cabins in the rear of the property.

He said the property owner paid for residents of the motel to stay for a week at the Howard Johnson Hotel, located on Hooper Avenue.

"The whole place is in overall poor condition," Seaman said. "At this point I don't think they're going to be reopening."

The two-story motel building and the rear cabins have been boarded up.

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The Pine Rest, built in 1960, has a troubled recent past. The motel has been the scene of at least two fires, as well as frequent police calls.

Seaman said that a water pipe broke during a cold spell this winter, leaving the property without water for several days.

See how the property looks now in the video above.

The 1.24-acre property is valued at $1,070,000, according to county tax records. The two-story motel building and the rear cabins have been boarded up.

In 2003, the motel property was included on a list of dilapidated structures that the township said could be targeted for demolition if repairs were not made.

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Toms River officials have been attempting to revitalize the eastern end of Route 37 for years, with only limited success.

The motel property is owned by C. Seaside Heights Hospitality LLC, which in 2016 received approval from Toms River's Planning Board to build a 72-room Hampton Inn on the land.

Toms River lawyer Harvey L. York, who represented the owners before the planning board, said C. Seaside Heights Hospitality was sued by two other local hotel owners after the planning board approved the Hampton Inn proposal.

C. Seaside Heights Hospitality won following a trial before Ocean County Superior Court Assignment Judge Marlene Lynch Ford, but the company's competitors have appealed the decision, and the case is awaiting a hearing before a state appellate panel, York said.

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"I think they had been planning to shut it down," York said of the motel. "It was costing them more to run it then they were making out there."

The township's Quality of Life Task Force was formed last fall. It includes members of the police department's Criminal Investigative Bureau and Special Enforcement Team, as well as employees from the Division of Fire Prevention, Code Enforcement and Zoning.

The task force has conducted raids at two other motels in Toms River: the Red Carpet inn on Water Street in the downtown, and the Americana Motel on Route 166, just north of Route 37.

In early November, the township declared the 50-room Red Carpet Inn "a public nuisance," and filed charges against the inn's owners in municipal court. Court action on those charges has been suspended because the township is negotiating with Red Carpet owners in an attempt to purchase the property.

The Township Council agreed to spend up to $4.8 million to buy the Red Carpet. The township wants to demolish the inn and build a flood protection berm for the downtown on the motel property.

The nuisance charge against Red Carpet was filed about a month after police raided the Red Carpet Inn and arrested 15 people — 11 men and four women — on drug distribution and drug possession charges.

In late November, 10 people were arrested on drug charges during a police raid at the Americana Motel.

Jean Mikle: 732-643-4050, @jeanmikle, jmikle@gannettnj.com