It could become the police station, instead of refurbishing current OCPD
OCEAN CITY – Mayor Jay Gillian said the city is considering buying the former Crown Bank building at 801 Asbury Ave. and refurbishing it as the new police station.
In his Mayor’s Update on the city website (ocnj.us) Friday, while reporting an update on the new police substation at Eighth Street and Boardwalk, Gillian said the city is considering buying the seven-story building at the corner of Eighth Street and Asbury Avenue.
“We are currently exploring the possibility of purchasing the former Crown Bank building at 801 Asbury Avenue to see if it would be more cost-effective than rebuilding the existing police station at 835 Central Avenue,” Gillian wrote.
“At this time, the city is pursuing due diligence to check the structural integrity of the building at 801 Asbury for use as the public safety building. Police are currently housed there in rented space, and they say the building meets their needs,” he added. “I will continue to provide updates as this process moves forward.”
He said officers should be able to move into the new substation by the boardwalk by Thanksgiving after that structure is expected to be completed before the end of October.
While that is under way, the city has been leasing space at 801 Asbury for some aspects of the police department.
The city has budgeted $30 million in its current capital plan to renovate and update the current police station on Central Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets. The building is a century old and at one time served as a school. It now houses the police station and municipal court, but is badly outdated.
A few years ago City Council rejected the administration’s ambitious proposal to build a state of the art combination police station, fire headquarters and court between Fifth and Sixth streets next to the current fire headquarters.
City Council objected to the hefty $42 million price tag and that it would have forced moving the city’s skateboard park, which is adjacent to the fire headquarters, behind Ocean City Primary School. Other objections included having the new police station right across from the primary school.
The Crown Bank building has had three owners in recent years, including longtime owners Paul and Della Ostien, who renovated the 1924 structure after buying it in the 1990s. They sold the building, but the next owner lost it to bankruptcy after only a few years.
(The Ocean City Sentinel leased space in the Crown Bank building between 2012 and 2023 after its longtime home on Eighth Street was damaged by flooding from Superstorm Sandy. The Sentinel’s offices remain in Ocean City, now at 218 West Ave.)
The current owners of 801 Asbury are brothers Raj and Yogi Khatiwala, whose Éclat Investment firm purchased it for $6.75 million in 2023, outbidding hotelier and luxury home builder Eustace Mita, who wanted to turn it into a boutique hotel.
Éclat has substantial holdings in Ocean City, including The Scarborough Inn, hotels The Forum, The Atlantic, Tahiti Inn and The Beach House, along with other downtown properties such as Stainton’s A Gallery of Shops and Three Little Birds (now housing Sun Rose Words and Music and other shops), and Staintons Gallery by the Sea on the boardwalk.
The city purchased parking lots on Central Avenue from the Khatiwala brothers and later purchased the two buildings on the southeast corner of Ninth Street and Central Avenue, a former frame shop and a restaurant. Those buildings are to be razed to make way for more parking between Eighth and Ninth streets. Once that is done, the city will have almost a block of municipal parking there.
The Crown Bank building, so named for a longtime former tenant, now houses office space and the bottom floor is home to a restaurant and The Shoppes on Asbury Avenue.
Tennis courts
Haven Ave. lot
The mayor noted that work on installing turf at the Fifth Street tennis courts across from the high school on Atlantic Avenue should be complete and the courts ready for play next week.
That project has taken additional time because of an issue with the turf dimensions originally installed. Work to redo the courts, which have a grasslike surface, began in late winter of this year, but weren’t complete in time for use for the spring high school boys tennis season.
Gillian also said work will begin again on the lots between 16th and 17th streets and Haven and Simpson avenues. The area used to house a car dealership but were purchased by the city in what turned into a long-running legal battle over acquisition costs.
The city now owns the site and had planned to do a little beautification work in the spring on the unsightly space, but decided against it after City Council objected to spending money on that area until a final decision on its use is determined.
“Clearing of the open space along the 1600 blocks of Haven and Simpson avenues has started,” Gillian wrote. “Drainage will go in first, then we will proceed with concrete sidewalks, curbs and gutters around the perimeter of the block. This work is necessary no matter what features and amenities we add to the public space.”
Suggestions have poured in on the future use of the site, but there has been no decision how it will be used, although prime considerations after for more parking for the Ocean City Community Center at 1735 Simpson Ave., and open space. City officials said there will be a public process to decide its use.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff