OCEAN CITY – Its report anxiously awaited for more than half a year, the Boardwalk Subcommittee will release its findings at 6 p.m. Friday, June 12, at the Ocean City Tabernacle.
Appointed by Ocean City Council President Terry Crowley Jr. in late fall 2025, the subcommittee was tasked with studying the boardwalk zoning and coming up with recommendations. That includes the former Wonderland Pier site, whose owner wants to put up an eight-story upscale hotel, but has so far been blocked.
The subcommittee, comprised of City Council and Planning Board members along with community members, has not made a public presentation since February, when it presented the facts it had begun to accumulate.
Fourth Ward City Councilman Dave Winslow, who is chairing the subcommittee, said Monday afternoon this will be the final report and it runs about 80 pages.
The subcommittee was formed and tasked with its mission because of the ongoing controversy over the future of the Wonderland Pier amusement park site at 600 Boardwalk. Crowley said rather than focus solely on that parcel, the subcommittee would study the boardwalk as a whole before making recommendations to City Council. City Council has the option to pass any, all or no recommendations onto the Planning Board.
Winslow noted he does not plan to discuss the subcommittee report at Thursday evening’s City Council meeting.
Wonderland Pier operated for just shy of 60 years on the property, but closed permanently in mid-October 2024. Owner Jay Gillian said in August 2024 the park was no longer financially viable. Gillian took over Wonderland from his father, the late Roy Gillian, a former Ocean City mayor.
At the time of his announcement, Gillian was leasing the park from hotelier and developer Eustace Mita.
Wonderland had run into severe financial difficulties, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mita purchased the property from Gillian in early 2021 to stave off bank foreclosure of some $8 million in loans. He then leased the park back so Gillian could continue operating it, which he did for four more summers before saying Ocean City could no long sustain two amusement parks. (Playland Castaway Cove operates a few blocks south on the boardwalk.)
Gillian has since filed for personal bankruptcy.
Concerns over the Wonderland site began because of Mita’s background as a luxury home builder and owner of multiple upscale hotels, most in Cape May County, as part of Icona Resorts. At one point he had proposed building a luxury oceanfront hotel on city-owned property next door, between Fifth and Sixth streets, but was rebuffed on that idea.
Soon after Gillian’s announcement about the closure of the park, Mita announced plans to build an eight-story, 252-room hotel with eight to 10 storefronts on the Wonderland site, something that is not permitted with current zoning. He projected his investment would be in the range of $170 million.
Mita asked the city to declare the property “in need of rehabilitation,” a step he wanted to ease his path of placing a hotel in a zone limited to amusements. Several community groups arose in opposition to those plans. Council meetings for months were filled with people speaking against and in favor of Mita’s hotel proposal.
Back in August 2025, City Council voted against sending the property to the Planning Board to get its recommendation on whether the property qualified as being in need of rehabilitation. However, after more public pressure from boardwalk and downtown business groups that argued in favor of the hotel, and because of worries about declining business at the north end of the boardwalk with the amusement park closed, council reversed course late in the year. They asked planners to rule on a recommendation.
This past January, the Planning Board, in a meeting at the Ocean City Music Pier to accommodate the crowds and more than 75 people speaking during public comment, ended up in a tie vote. The board put forward no recommendation, leaving the site in limbo.
The main building at Wonderland was refurbished and opened for the summer in 2025, housing a pizzeria, bike rental and some arcade games, but the remaining rides on the site sat silent.
At various points throughout the process, Mita has threatened to sell the property for at least $25 million. He said he was giving up on the hotel proposal after the August council vote and said he quickly got offers from two different builders. However, he held off and was buoyed by council reversing course later in the year. After the Planning Board stalemate in January, Mita again said he would sell, but also has held off on doing that.
The future of the Wonderland site remains contentious and factored into the recent mayor and at-large City Council elections, with critics, including the citizens group and a local political action committee criticizing Gillian’s links to Mita. That did not stop voters from re-electing Gillian to a fifth consecutive term in office. City Councilman Sean Barnes, who has vocally opposed the rehab designation, was re-elected. Also elected was newcomer Jim Kelly, who helped form a citizens group in opposition to Mita’s proposal.
On Monday, Winslow declined to offer any information from the report until it is presented to the public Friday.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff