Others carved out redevelopment zones earlier and could still act on them.

If they made the avenue a redevelopment zone, the Council would commission a plan and an agency to oversee it before choosing a developer.

It has now reached agreements to buy the rest, avoiding any use of the city's condemnation powers in a redevelopment zone.

The site for the unrealized store is in the 160-acre redevelopment zone.

Indeed, its master plan calls for five separate redevelopment zones.

Officials plan to add lower Broadway as a sixth redevelopment zone later this month.

City officials emphasize that the redevelopment zone was carefully drawn to protect major manufacturing areas.

He said it was the type of economic activity that the city expected to ripple out from the redevelopment zones.

So far, he said, Long Branch has helped 300 people from the redevelopment zone find other places in town to live.

Other property owners in the first 25-acre redevelopment zone said they felt that the city's initial offer of $1 a square foot was far too low.