The former Hankins wooden boat building, Lavallette, N.J. (Credit: Ocean County Historical Society/ Google Earth)
An aging, nondescript building along Grand Central Avenue (Route 35 North) is due to be replaced by its owners, but history will not soon forget who once lived in the building, which has evolved into part of the borough’s commercial district over the decades.
Later this month, the Lavallette planning board will hold a hearing on an application to demolish the building at 506 Grand Central Avenue, which long housed the Beach Authority clothing and accessory store, and later a real estate office. The building, as it currently stands, consists of a mix of commercial space and residential units. It is proposed to largely maintain the same layout – a mixed-use building in the center of the busy business district – but it’s worth noting the current building’s former occupant before it may be relegated to the history books.
The building at 506 Grand Central Avenue was once home to the Hankins family, and also served as a place of business for their generational boat-building company. The building was owned by Charles Hankins, the legendary builder of what is estimated to have been about 4,000 boats over the course of his career. Hankins died in 2003, and the following year, Anna O. Hankins sold the building for $462,800. While Hankins made pleasure boats and light commercial boats over the decades, the family business was best known for its lifeguard boats, which were based on the pound fishing boats of generations past.
The business began in 1912 when it was founded by Charles Hankins Sr., and was taken over by his son following service in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. Most of the boats were built in the shop on Grand Central Avenue – including pleasure boats up to 40-feet in length. Business eventually slowed as wooden boats fell out of favor, supplanted by fiberglass-hulled vessels, leading Hankins to begin winding down the boat-building operation in 1994.
The building lived on, however, as a retail store and a mixed-use space long before the term “mixed-use” even became popular in land use parlance.
It may soon be time for the building to be replaced by its owner, 506 Grand Central Ave. LLC, which tax records show is owned by Salvatore and Allison Conte, who operate a home-building business in North Jersey. The planning board will consider the owners’ application at its March 12, 2025 meeting.
The owners are requesting approval to demolish the existing structure and replace it with a new, two-story mixed-use building. According to a legal filing, the property is located in the B-2 commercial zone, which permits two-story mixed-use buildings with retail, office and restaurant uses on either floor and residential uses on the second floor only. Board approval is necessary because the owner is proposing, for development proposes, one residential unit and one office unit on the second floor. The board will also need to approve four uses of the building – two commercial units on the ground floor and one residential unit and one office unit on the second floor – where only two uses are normally permitted in a single building.
Planning board members will also be asked to provide relief, if it is determined to be necessary, from a regulation that limits retail space to a total of 3,500 square feet. Although the ground floor of the proposed building where the two retail units will be located will measure 3,318 square feet, below the 3,500 maximum permitted, the total building over two floors will contain 6,637 square feet, which may be deemed a deviation depending on how officials interpret the zoning ordinance.
A minor variance will also be required since the roof, measured from a cupola, stands at 32 feet where 30 feet is the normal limit.
The board is scheduled to hear the case Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at 5 p.m. at borough hall, 1306 Grand Central Avenue.
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