DUI Lawyers in Riverdale, NJ

Residents of a Riverdale condo complex were forced to flee a fire that broke out late Friday night in a fourth-floor corner unit, police said.

One firefighter was taken from the scene to Chilton Medical Center in Pequannock for precautionary evaluation, Lt. James MacIntosh said. No residents were injured.

Police and fire fighters responded at 10:15 p.m. to a 911 call from the eight-building complex on Ramapo Court and saw flames coming from the balcony of a top-floor corner unit at Building Four.

As residents were already evacuating, responders entered the building to make sure the evacuation was complete, MacIntish said.

MacIntosh said the fire department did "an outstanding job" preventing the fire from entering the truss system of the building, "before it became fully engulfed," MacIntosh said.

"The fire marshal said it was about 20 seconds away from going up," MacIntosh said. "It was that close. They cut the hole and got the water on it just as it was about to go crazy in the attic."

About 30 units in the approximately 550-unit complex were damaged to the point where they were determined to be uninhabitable. MacIntosh said the Red Cross arrived to assist displaced residents.

The cause of the fire is under investigation but is not considered suspicious, MacIntosh said.

William Westhoven: 973-917-9242; wwesthoven@Dailyrecord.com

After decades as an active excavation site, the Riverdale Quarry is being cleared for redevelopment.

Excavation has stopped, and machinery has been removed from the 127-acre site, south of Hamburg Turnpike and west of Interstate 287. Quarrying was expected to end in 2014. A decade later, the site is finally getting ready for its next life.

Due to the delay, borough officials adopted a revised redevelopment plan for the site in spring 2024, setting new zoning regulations and defining the types of businesses that can operate there. The plan, developed with input from the town's Quarry Redevelopment Committee and property owners, allows for a mix of industrial and commercial uses, town records show.

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Permitted uses include warehouses, distribution and fulfillment centers, last-mile logistics hubs, data centers, light manufacturing facilities and makerspaces, or workshop-style spaces designed for small-scale production and prototyping. The plan allows uses to be combined within a single building, providing flexibility for future tenants, records show.

Town officials identified the uses in an effort to create jobs near residential areas, capitalize on the site's access to Interstate 287 and restore lost tax revenue, records show. The redevelopment plan calls the site an "ideal employment location," as it is largely hidden from local neighborhoods.

In addition to principal uses, the redevelopment plan outlines several permitted accessory uses. They include office and employee space, solar carports and outdoor storage. Town officials said the quarry owners, currently Bernardsville-based Riverdale Quarry LLC, will ultimately bring a developer forward to negotiate with the borough. The resulting developer’s agreement should set more specific requirements for any project.

The Riverdale site, assessed at more than $24 million for tax purposes in 2025, was leased by Tilcon New York Inc. for crushed stone production in 2024, according to town records. Its property tax bill is roughly $444,710, county records show.

North Jersey area known for pinkish-white stone

The site was once well known for its Pompton Pink Granite, a distinctive pinkish-white stone found only in the Riverdale, Pompton Lakes and Bloomingdale area.

Widely used as a decorative building stone, it may have been formed about 1 billion years ago from magma beneath the New Jersey Highlands, state geological records say. The colorful granite has been used at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Paterson and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Some of it can be seen in the rock faces behind the Walmart store at the northwest intersection of Route 23 and Interstate 287.

What happens to former quarries?

Many former quarries in North Jersey have become residential sites. The Villas at Crown View in West Orange now stand at the former Orange Quarry near Interstate 280, and the aptly named Heritage Lake at the Quarry sits amid a former limestone quarry in Hamburg.

Some former quarries have taken on more commercial use. A former quarry in West Milford along Greenwood Lake Turnpike turned into the home of a mulch company and now also houses a natural gas compressor station for the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company.

All 11 Joann stores in New Jersey will close in the near future rather than just six as initially reported, part of the 800 stores now closing nationwide after the fabric and craft retailer was auctioned off to a new ownership group.

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time within a year, Joann's remaining assets were put up for auction. Retail liquidator GA Group and Joann's term lenders won the bidding for the struggling company on Saturday, Feb. 22.

In collaboration with the new ownership group, the Hudson, Ohio-based retailer announced it will shut down operations at all stores after conducting going-out-of-business sales at each location.

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According to federal court records, the auction results are expected to be formally approved during a hearing on Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

The company had previously announced the closures of "approximately 500" of its more than 800 locations across the U.S, including six in New Jersey. That would have left five remaining in the Garden State.

"Joann leadership, our Board, advisors and legal partners made every possible effort to pursue a more favorable outcome that would keep the company in business," the company statement reads. "We are committed to working constructively with the winning bidder to ensure an orderly wind-down of operations that minimizes the impact on all our stakeholders."

"We deeply appreciate our dedicated Team Members, our customers and communities across the nation for their unwavering support for more than 80 years," the statement continues.

Scott Carpenter, CEO of GA Group's Retail Solutions and Wholesale & Industrial Solutions teams, told the Ohio-based Akron Beacon Journal — part of the USA TODAY Network — that most of the closing Joann stores would remain open until the end of May.

There are 11 Joann stores in New Jersey, all of them now on the chopping block:

Previously, just the Deptford, Lawrenceville, Mays Landing, Mount Laurel, Succasunna and Toms River stores were slated to close as part of the bankruptcy procedure.

A spot check of Joanns closing across New Jersey found discounts of between 10% and 40%, and Christmas items discounted as high as 70%.

Is Joann accepting gift cards, other discounts?

Joann’s restructuring website says it is not accepting gift cards at this time. Discounts for Girl Scouts, teachers, military and health care are also paused. The company also says returns are not being accepted at the closing stores.

Second bankruptcy process in a year

In January, Joann announced that it was declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time within a 12-month period as the beleaguered chain sought a buyer.

The chain saw its business boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Americans used the extra time amid stay-at-home orders and the extra money from stimulus payments to delve into crafts.

But the “number of people engaging in crafts has declined over the past few years,” and the company in turn “struggled to turn a profit and was in desperate need of recapitalization,” retail analyst Neil Saunders said last year.

Long list of chains that have closed or reduced footprints

The company joins a long list of brick-and-mortar stores that have recently shut down or drastically curtailed operations, including Stop & Shop, Big Lots, Buybuy Baby, Family Dollar, Rite Aid, CVS, Bed Bath & Beyond and Christmas Tree Shops. Forever 21, which has 15 New Jersey stores, is also considering bankruptcy.

This article contains material from USA Today.

Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record.

Email: munozd@northjersey.com; Twitter:@danielmunoz100 and Facebook