We had just spent five years struggling to keep our business open and to help promote Asbury Park's neglected downtown, with little support from even our own city government. Every second person who came into our gallery wanted only to reminisce about the good old days in Asbury Park and to ply us with suggestions for what "you people" should be doing to bring it back.

They usually ended by sagely informing us that Asbury Park was hopeless, and that none of us would ever live long enough to see its restoration.

By the time we closed our gallery, I was so angry that I drove to the beach and spent a day photographing everything I hated: the roofless Casino with its bent and broken sea serpents, the patched and empty carousel house, the boarded-up pavilions, the trash-strewn lots, and (of course) that rusted metal monstrosity protruding onto Ocean Avenue.

In the following weeks, I transferred those photos onto a favorite jacket and surrounded them with hand-embroidered words like greed, despair and indifference. Along the top, I placed a puppeteer's gloved hands with three dangling puppets representing "The Drug Dealer," "The Land Baron" and "The Politician." (This was a looong temper tantrum!)

As the coup de grace, I embroidered the words "Greedings [sic] From Asbury Park" around the waistband. Not great art, I admit, but it certainly was a great way to vent my frustrations about Asbury Park's trampled hopes, lost opportunities, and opinionated detractors.

Now a year has passed, and I'm looking at a very different Asbury Park. All the things that made me angry are still along the ocean, but once again I can see the potential.

The redevelopment agreement that the city signed with M.D. Sass and Ocean Front Acquisitions (Sass' development arm) on August 14 means that, after years of beachfront litigation and stagnation, we finally have an opportunity to move forward again.

As described in my last column, the city and Sass will work out a refined plan by December 28 with preliminary schedules and redevelopment responsibilities, and we have six months to collaborate on an updated description of what will be built.

Sass has already hired its planner -- Eric Cohen of Cohen d+u (design and urbanism) of New York and Ocean Township -- and the city is interviewing three excellent planners from New York, New Jersey and Florida. Once our planner is in place (hopefully by next week), we'll work out a joint planning process that will include specific opportunities for public input and information sharing.

Asbury Park is already a city planner's dream, with beautifully placed parks and lakes, and streets that flare out along the coast to collect ocean breezes and views, and we want to preserve that design.

Convention Hall and the Casino (with its adjoining power plant) are major preservation priorities that will be tackled early in the development process, and restoring them to their former glory and full public use will require lots of cash, creativity and care.

And, yes, I admit that I'm personally rooting for the quirky Palace Amusements (it would make a great restaurant and entertainment complex) and for our "space age" Howard Johnson's. Both structures are unique along the East Coast, and I'd hate to claim responsibility for the demise of either one.

As you probably know, Sass is interested in jump-starting three residential projects that appeared in our 1986 redevelopment plan. First, they would like to build townhouses in the abandoned area along Wesley Lake, just west of the Palace Amusements. Second, they would like to place concentrated housing at the former Monterey Hotel site, just behind the Berkeley Carteret Hotel. Finally, they would like to complete C8, the unfinished metal skeleton that has spelled redevelopment failure for over a decade.

As you can imagine, there will be much negotiation about all three sites in the coming months. For instance, housing density at all three sites will be scaled back from the 1986 redevelopment plan. The council is also adamant about keeping Ocean Avenue open, and C8 (if finished) can no longer protrude onto the street. In addition, 1986 plans for a second high-rise tower at C8 would be abandoned.

While there is public concern about this added residential development, new dwellings would also add life to the oceanfront area and they would bring needed support to the downtown and Casino-area business and entertainment districts. (You may be familiar with the way that the Old City and South Street sections of Philadelphia were reborn in recent decades.) Given that Asbury Park has no industrial parks or large shopping complexes, it would also bring needed tax dollars into a city with a sorely deteriorated tax base.

Our goal (and the goal of our planners) will be to design any such developments in a way that preserves our historic "Jersey shore" character, while acknowledging the need for economic viability.

Atlantic City -- with its forbidding wall of high rises blocking off the ocean -- is the antithesis of what Asbury Park needs, no matter how much money those buildings generate. In contrast, the Seaside and the Spray View are two large condominium complexes on Ocean Grove's north end that people hardly notice because they blend so well with the surrounding architecture. The same care needs to be taken in Asbury Park.

Redevelopment is going to be a major balancing act. Sass has already sunk considerable money into Asbury Park to break the redevelopment stalemate at a time when the economy is bobbing precariously. Even the state -- which has supported so many other towns' redevelopment efforts in the past -- has recent financial woes. We'll need to show that what makes sense for Asbury Park as a community is also financially viable for the people who are restoring it.

My biggest request? Please stay open and flexible. Be aware that planning is just beginning and look for opportunities to participate. Question any fantastic rumors you hear. (I've heard some dillies in the past week, but I don't plan to repeat them.)

Keep talking to us, and we'll keep talking to you. Call a council member or the city manager if you have a specific concern, and excuse us if we seem distracted or crabby at times. Our brains are exploding, but we really are listening. Finally, it's OK to be skeptical, but please don't be cynical. We've been given a fantastic opportunity, but there's no way to avoid all the rocks in the road.

As for me, I've already started my "happy" Asbury Park jacket.