Construction Continues on Chase Branch in Pluckemin

As the photo shows, construction is moving ahead in Pluckemin on a new branch bank for the investment and banking firm of JPMorgan Chase. I never thought that I’d find myself in the position of favoring one giant financial institution over another, but this is an exception: Just a few hundred feet away from where Chase is erecting its ill-advised building sits a Bank of America branch on Burnt Mills Road.

The BofA branch is sufficiently removed from the intersection in Pluckemin where U.S. Route 202-206 joins with Washington Valley Road and Burnt Mills Road. The BofA location does not disturb the traffic pattern at the intersection.

This cannot be said for the new Chase building which sits on a corner within spitting distance from the sidewalk where it will hamper traffic flows at that busy commuting intersection.

The reason that Chase is setting up on that spot is obvious: That’s where the money is – in them thar’ hills. There is nothing wrong with chasing after the wealth to be mined in the Somerset Hills, but the site chosen for the battle between BofA and Chase (the Peapack-Gladstone Bank is in the Hills Shopping Center just a block away) is incompatible with the personality of the village of Pluckemin.

It’s another bad decision by Bedminster officials who once acquiesced to having a major interchange which would have unloaded traffic from Interstate 78 onto Rt. 202-206. That interchange would have been right on Bridgewater’s border, next to the Bridgewater Manor and would have ruined the character of the village of Pluckemin, not to mention its negative impact on the northern section of Bridgewater.

The citizen pushback on that scheme was overwhelming; State of New Jersey officials and Bedminster had to back off. Too bad that there isn’t a similar rethinking of this unnecessary addition to the Bridgewater-Pluckemin landscape.

Just What Pluckemin Needs, another Branch of a National Bank

For years, at the intersection of Route 202-206, where it meets Washington Valley Road leading east and Burnt Mills Road leading west, the southwest corner was conspicuously empty, having been occupied by a succession of gas stations.

Across from that location occupying the other three corners of the intersection are an Exxon Station; a shopping center with an A&P as the anchor store; a liquor store, a sandwich shop and other small businesses.

Unless memory fails me, a local Bedminster newspaper once reported that Bedminster officials had considered setting this site aside, removing it from consideration for business development, perhaps as a green zone or a small park. That was and is a perfect use for an already overly congested corner.

No matter: the large investment conglomerate and banking house of JPMorgan Chase seems to have prevailed upon Bedminster that it would be a better idea to add to the vehicular clutter at this intersection.

Consider this: A perfectly adequate Bank of America office sits within an athlete’s stone’s throw from the new Chase branch under construction. Just a block north in the Hills Shopping Center, there is another perfectly fine Peapack-Gladstone branch.

But I suppose that Bedminster officials have felt the need for another giant financial institution to set up shop near the Bridgewater Township border at what is one of the worst possible locations in Pluckemin and Somerset County – more intrusive construction where we don’t need it.