ABC Trans Corp. wants to turn the vacant former health club at 8 Edgeboro Road into a school bus depot with offices, maintenance space and 45 bus parking stalls. The East Brunswick Zoning Board of Adjustment is scheduled to hear the application tonight, Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Court Room at the municipal complex.
The application is numbered Z-26-14. The property is Block 833, Lot 21.03 — a 3.11-acre lot just off Route 18 holding a two-story, 26,323-square-foot building put up in the late 1970s. On its own application, the company describes the present use as an “existing building (former health club, presently vacant)” and the prior use as a Jack LaLanne gym, later a Bally’s.
The proposed use, in the applicant’s words on the form: “Bus depot, offices.”
ABC Trans Corp., based on Route 1 in North Brunswick, does not own the site. It is listed on the application as the contract purchaser, which means the sale is conditioned on getting this approval. The owner of record is MC East Brunswick LLC, of Edgewater.
What the plans show
These figures are taken directly from the application and the eight-sheet site plan prepared by East Point Engineering of Marlboro, both posted on the township’s Zoning Board page:
- 45 bus stalls, in four angled rows of 8, 12, 12 and 13, each 12 feet by 40 feet
- 25 car spaces at the front of the lot along Edgeboro Road, including an accessible space
- Four new overhead doors cut into the building’s eastern wall, to move vehicles in and out
- The entire parking lot repaved and restriped; the building’s interior renovated for the new use
- A new six-foot PVC fence, 700 feet long, along the northern property line
- Fifteen new shade trees on a lot that currently has none, and a new refuse enclosure
- Twenty-six new LED light fixtures on poles just over 17 feet tall
The plans state that there are no changes to utilities and no changes to the site’s access onto Edgeboro Road.
Why it needs a use variance
A bus depot is not on East Brunswick’s list of things you may do in the HC-2 General Highway Commercial zone. Section 228-176 of the township zoning ordinance names twenty permitted uses, from banks to professional offices. Health clubs are on that list; they were added by ordinance in 2017. A bus depot is not, and the ordinance prohibits uses the list does not name.
So the company is asking for a use variance — a “d” variance under state law. On the application it checked the box and wrote: “Proposed use is not permitted in the zone (Use Variance).”
That matters procedurally. An ordinary variance passes on a simple majority. A use variance requires five affirmative votes out of the seven-member board. The applicant has to show both “special reasons” for the use and that it will not substantially harm the zoning plan or the neighborhood.
There is a second sign that the ordinance never contemplated this use. Every applicant must calculate required parking. For office space the engineer used one space per 200 square feet; for storage, one per 5,000. In the row marked “bus yard,” the column reads: “NOT ADDRESSED.” The township’s parking ordinance contains no standard for it.
The application also seeks lot-coverage relief. The zone permits 75 percent coverage. The site is already at 91.2 percent, and the plan brings it down to 89.4 percent — an improvement, but still above the limit, so it needs a variance. Two other items, a 12-foot rear yard where 60 feet is required and a 6.9-foot parking setback where 10 feet is required, are existing conditions that the plan does not change. One existing condition gets better: the rear parking setback improves from 5.9 feet to 17.5 feet.
What the application does not say
This is a pre-meeting report, and it is worth being precise about the limits of the paperwork. The filed documents establish what would be built. They do not describe how the site would operate.
The application and plans do not state:
- The operating hours, or the hours during which maintenance work would be done
- The number of employees
- How many buses would actually be based at the site. Forty-five is the number of stalls painted on the plan, not a declared fleet size
- How many buses would move in and out during the morning and afternoon school runs
- What the maintenance work would consist of. The plan’s own parking calculation classifies the building only as office and storage or warehouse space, with no repair or service category, which sits alongside the four proposed overhead doors
- Whether fueling, washing or fluid storage would take place on site. No fuel island, pump or tank appears anywhere on the eight sheets, and the only exterior utility work listed is replacement air-conditioning units — but the documents do not say what will or will not happen indoors
- Whether buses would idle outdoors, or for how long
There is no traffic study and no noise study in the plan set. The plans commit to complying with the township’s noise code. Eyes on EB is not suggesting that this proposal would cause a traffic or noise problem; we have no evidence either way, and neither does the file. These are simply the questions a zoning board hearing exists to answer, under oath and on the record, with the board’s own engineer and planner in the room. Residents who want those answers can hear them asked tonight.
Who is nearby
Every applicant must notify property owners within 200 feet, and that list is printed on the plan. It has six entries, and all six are commercial or institutional. No home is within the 200-foot notice area.
The neighbors are two office and warehouse buildings at 16 Edgeboro Road, the Motel 6 and Studio 6 site at 244 Route 18, commercial property at 6 Edgeboro Road, a warehouse at 11 Edgeboro Road, the former PNC Bank building at 710 Old Bridge Turnpike — and, next door at 7 Edgeboro Road, the Just Home Adult Medical Day Care.
The day care is described in the township’s own 2023 redevelopment investigation of the Edgeboro Road area as a two-story, 20,350-square-foot building with an outdoor passive recreation area. It is the closest occupied building to the proposed bus yard. The new 700-foot fence shown on the plans runs along the northern boundary, facing the motel site, rather than toward the day care.
One piece of context
ABC Trans Corp. is already one of East Brunswick’s school bus contractors. Board of Education minutes name it in route awards going back to March 2022, and under contracts approved this past June it runs the Lakeview School route and holds renewals covering Central Elementary, the Churchill-to-East Brunswick High athletic shuttle and the St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas run. The school board contract and this zoning application are separate matters before separate bodies. But it is part of why the application matters locally: the company already transports East Brunswick students under contracts with the school district.
How to attend
East Brunswick Zoning Board of Adjustment
Tonight, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026, 7 p.m.
Court Room, East Brunswick municipal complex, 1 Jean Walling Civic Center Drive
Application Z-26-14 is item 2 on the agenda, under New Business. Members of the public may comment on an application before the board votes.
One caution: the posted agenda is marked tentative. Land use applications are sometimes carried to a later date, and a first hearing on a major site plan often does not finish in one night. The board has until Dec. 31, 2026 to act on this application.
The township’s materials are public. You can read the Zoning Board agenda for Sept. 17, the development application and the full site plan, all posted on the township’s Zoning Board page.
Eyes on EB will update this article after the hearing with what the applicant testified, what the board asked, what residents said, any conditions imposed, and whether the application was approved, denied or carried.
How we did this
This report is drawn from the development application and the eight-sheet site plan filed by ABC Trans Corp. with the Township of East Brunswick, both posted on the township’s Zoning Board page; the Zoning Board’s tentative agenda for Sept. 17, 2026; Chapter 228 of the Township Code; the Planning Board’s 2022 to 2023 preliminary redevelopment investigation of the Edgeboro Road area; and East Brunswick Board of Education minutes. Figures are as stated in those documents. Eyes on EB has not yet sought comment from the applicant.
