New building to rise in same spot by end of 2028; city going out to bid on airport terminal
OCEAN CITY — The old Public Safety Building will be demolished after Columbus Day and construction on the new building is expected to begin early next year.
Mayor Jay Gillian, updating the public on multiple city projects, talked about the Public Safety Building and new airport terminal at his Saturday morning Town Hall meeting in the Chris Maloney Lecture Hall at the Ocean City Free Public Library.
Gillian said he expects the new Public Safety Building, on Central Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets, to be completed by the end of 2028.
Many of the police operations have been moved to the police substation the city opened earlier this year at Eighth Street and the Boardwalk. The city also has been renting two floors in the former Crown Bank building at Eighth Street and Central Avenue for the police department and municipal court.
The new Public Safety Building “almost looks like the same building,” Gillian said, and it will be in the same footprint.
The city had planned to demolish the old building, which is more than a century old, before the summer to use the space for parking, but it could not be done in time for the start of the season around Memorial Day. The city put off demolition until after the busy summer season.
Across the street, the city had added parking after buying and demolishing a pair of buildings, a former frame shop and a restaurant, at the northwest corner of Eighth Street and Central Avenue, expanding the large city lots on the block.
The city is waiting until after Columbus Day and the city’s annual Fall Block Party, which draws tens of thousands of visitors to the city’s Asbury Avenue downtown business district just a street over.
Airport Terminal
Gillian said the city is going out to bid on the new airport terminal building that will be named after Leon and Elizabeth Grisbaum. In a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 15, 2024, Leon Grisbaum donated $3 million for a new terminal at the city’s municipal airport. The current building dates from the 1950s. Grisbaum, owner of Berger Realty, originally made his pledge in December 2022.
In July 2024, council approved a $465,000 contract with McLees Architecture to design the new terminal, which has an expected cost of about $6 million.
Grisbaum’s only stipulation to his gift, in addition to the fact it was contingent on the city actually building a new terminal, was that it would have a restaurant. There was a restaurant that operated at the airport terminal, but it closed a few years ago.
Grisbaum said when he was allowed to fly his private plane, pilots enjoyed traveling to small airports as recreation, enjoying meals at the airport diners.
Gillian said his father, former Ocean City mayor Roy Gillian, was a pilot and did those types of trips.
“It was cool going to all these different cities and they had these little greasy spoon hamburger joints,” Gillian said. “It was the best time of my life and that’s what Mr. Grisbaum wants to do. He’ll be around at the ribbon-cutting.”
The restaurant space, which will be on the third floor, will be rented out to an operator. According to the contract, the building will have 14,000 square feet of enclosed space, 3,800 square feet of exterior porch and observation deck space, a pilot’s lunge, conference room and a pro shop for the neighboring municipal golf course.
Currently there is a space for a food truck that operates in the airport parking lot.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff