City Council votes 6-1 not to send the property to Planning Board to determine if it is an ‘area in need of rehabilitation’
OCEAN CITY — Wonderland Pier is on the market. The first $25 million will buy it.
Visibly disappointed property owner Eustace Mita said that minutes after Ocean City Council voted 6-1 Thursday evening not to recommend the boardwalk property to the Planning Board to determine if it is an “area in need of rehabilitation.”
It was a procedural vote, but one that could start a process to building something different at the site.
“It’s over,” Mita told a few members of the media in City Hall after leaving City Council Chambers, where for two hours some 37 citizens spoke for and against the developer’s plans for a 252-room hotel at the property home to an amusement park for nearly 60 years. Wonderland Pier closed as an amusement park in October 2024.
Mita said he planned to spend $135 million to $150 million to build an eight-story hotel with 375 parking spaces and a retail complex in its place while keeping a few iconic rides from Wonderland including the Ferris wheel and carousel.
An early step in that process was deeming the site “in need of rehabilitation.” The city was far from approving any specific project there, Mita’s or otherwise. However, the seats in Council Chambers were filled an hour before the meeting began at 6 p.m. and it was standing room only as more people packed in.
The vote on the council agenda was to send that proposal to the Planning Board to make the rehabilitation determination, but after two hours of citizen comment and another more than half-hour of council stating their positions, it became clear the process would not move forward.
The first four members of the seven-member council who spoke said they were against it, dooming the proposal.
Instead, council members decided a first step is revising the Master Plan for the entire city and boardwalk. A few even suggested holding a referendum on Mita’s plan.
“I think the city really lost an opportunity because regardless of what happens today, that piece should have been put in a redevelopment zone,” Mita said. “It’s the biggest piece on the boardwalk. It’s a special piece. Now I think what they just did, I know what they did, is they kicked a can down the road for five years.
“There is no way that we’re gonna get some Master Plan before five years. And I think it’s a shame because a number of them (council members) were in favor,” Mita said.
Only Council Vice President Pete Madden voted in favor of the resolution. Council President Terry Crowley Jr. and Councilmen Dave Winslow, Jody Levchuk, Keith Hartzell, Sean Barnes and Tony Polcini voted no.
Most followed Winslow’s opening comments that the property should be considered only in a much broader context, as part of a Master Plan revision process, something that can often take a few years or more.
Mita owns Icona Resorts and its upscale hotels including those in Cape May, Diamond Beach, Avalon and Stone Harbor, and Achristavest Fine Home Builders, builder of luxury homes. He estimated more of the speakers at public comment were in favor of his proposal and were articulate in their reasoning.
(By the Sentinel’s count, there were 17 people who spoke in favor of sending the property to the Planning Board and 20 who spoke against it.)
“As far as Icona (Resorts) is concerned, we don’t have another five years to go, and we will immediately put it up for sale and I will exit,” Mita said.
He said other groups have expressed interest in the opportunity to develop it “and now they have it.”
Community groups including Friends of OCNJ History & Culture and advocacy group Ocean City 2050 put forward a proposal they call Wonderland Commons with a mixed entertainment use for the site and some limited, low-rise housing.
Asked if he was personally disappointed, he agreed.
“Of course I am,” Mita said.
Asked by a reporter if he were shocked, he smiled.
“Nothing in Ocean City shocks me,” he said.
“I actually was surprised by the vote,” he said. “Here’s why I was surprised. It has nothing to do with a hotel. It’s strictly to get it out of amusement zoning.”
He noted he tried to pitch the idea of a partnership with Will and Jack Morey of Morey’s Piers in Wildwood, but they said the site is not a “viable project for an amusement park.”
Mita said the property is appraised for $25 million. He said he spent $14 million to buy it in early 2021 to save it from foreclosure. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a bank was calling in $8 million in loans owed by Jay Gillian.
After Mita bought the property, he leased it back to Gillian, who continued to run the amusement park for a few more years. Gillian, Ocean City’s mayor, announced in August 2024 that the park would close permanently in October 2024 because the resort could no longer support two amusement parks.
He said Wonderland Pier was no longer a viable business. Playland’s Castaway Cove amusement park operates a few blocks south on the boardwalk.
“I guess people are going to believe me now; this was a labor of love for me,” Mita said. “You know, I’m a hometown boy, and I love Ocean City, and the number one revenue generator in Ocean City is tourism. The number one supporter of tourism is hotel rooms. We’ve lost 70 percent of our hotel rooms in the last three decades, and I was called on that to prove it, and we had all black and white pictures of the hotels that were torn down.”
“I’m disappointed, but, you know, I love Ocean City, and what’s done is done. I just think it’s a shame.”
Mita said he has owned a home on Wesley Avenue in Ocean City for 30 years but also has a home in Pennsylvania. “Do I also live in Pennsylvania, yes I do,” he said. “And you know what that’s called? Taxation without representation.
“If I’m not the highest paying taxpayer in Ocean City, I’m in the top three. Let’s start with if that makes me a non-resident, then I have nothing more to say about that.”
Mita said he spent nearly $500,000 to reopen the main Wonderland building (but not the rides) this summer because of his love for Ocean City, wanting there to be an anchor on the north end of the boardwalk. “Now someone else is going to get that opportunity.”
In addition to paying $14 million in 2021 to buy the property, which includes 300 feet of frontage on the boardwalk at Sixth Street, he said he spent more than $1 million a year since then carrying it.
“I have right at $20 million in it, so my investment is $20 million,” he said. “So were we to sell it for $25 million … it’d be less than a 10 percent return per year.”
“We build from Cape May to Spring Lake, and this is my hometown, but it’s also the toughest town to do anything in,” Mita said.
STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
Editor’s note: More stories to come on council members’ reasoning for their votes, the mayor’s comments to start the meeting and the public comment.