Asks for support to get resolution on upcoming agenda
OCEAN CITY — The longer the former Wonderland Pier site sits empty, the worse things are going to be for merchants in the north end of the boardwalk and around the city, Councilman Jody Levchuk said.
“I think we need to discuss putting this back to City Council to determine whether or not this should be a property in need of rehabilitation or redevelopment,” he said Nov. 20, outlining why he has come to that conclusion in a lengthy statement.
“I don’t think anybody in this room or anybody in the city wants to see a property sit in the condition that it’s in,” he said, calling it the biggest property on the boardwalk.
Levchuk, whose family owns and operates multiple shops on the boardwalk, including JiLLy’s Arcade and associated businesses near the corner of 12th Street, said he knows of a few businesses on the 600 block that closed shop this past summer as a result of Wonderland being closed.
“That is a harsh reality,” Levchuk said.
In August, City Council voted 6-1 against referring the property to the Planning Board to get its recommendation on whether it qualified as an area in need of rehabilitation. Councilman Pete Madden cast the sole yes vote.
Wonderland Pier was operated by the Gillian family for just shy of 60 years before Jay Gillian decided in August 2024 he would close it permanently in October 2024, saying it was no longer financially viable and that Ocean City could not sustain two amusement parks. Playland’s Castaway Cove is a few blocks south on the boardwalk.
After selling the property to hotelier and real estate developer Eustace Mita in 2021, Gillian leased it back from him, continuing to operate the amusement park for four more years, before deciding to close.
Mita planned to build an eight-story luxury hotel and retail complex at the site on the corner of Sixth Street.
Those plans were dashed when City Council declined to forward the property to the Planning Board.
“What are we to do?” Levchuk said. “To me, it’s an easy algebra equation: X equals take this property and give it to our Planning Board of professionals and let’s get their advice on it.”
Levchuk said his conclusion was “formulated from after more than a year of really listening to every member of the public, business owners, associations in this town.”
“It’s weighed heavily on me; it’s how I make my living, too,” he said. “I care deeply about the boardwalk all the way from Sixth Street to 14th Street, every business in between.”
Levchuk said he recently returned from the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions expo in Orlando, Fla., noting that he knows the owners of all of the amusement parks in tri-state area.
He said not one person told him they would like to operate an amusement park on the boardwalk site.
“As a matter of fact, the opposite has happened. Anybody who is going to run an amusement facility like that where you have a 90-day, 100-day working period of revenue is not interested in” paying the high cost of the property.
Wonderland Pier is not coming back, he said.
“That’s a reality we have to face. Everybody, every business on that boardwalk has to face it,” he said. “We’re also faced with if not that, then what?”
Levchuk said Mita is willing to invest $150 million on an upscale hotel that would attract pedestrians to the north end.
He said he was hoping to have a vote at the next City Council meeting.
“I’m giving plenty of time, plenty of notice to have two other City Council people to maybe join me on putting it on the agenda for us to vote on it again. I’m giving plenty of notice to the crowd. I’m doing it as out there as I possibly know how to do it,” Levchuk said.
He believes there is some merit in alternative proposals put forth, but said each would require a redevelopment agreement.
“We need to get up the first step in this staircase here before we can even start discussing what we’re going to do. If we can’t get that property into a rehabilitation or redevelopment phase, I don’t know what any developer is going to do with that property going forward,” he said.
Levchuk noted that both the boardwalk and downtown merchants associations, along with the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce, support his position.
“All of these entities have put themselves on the line of coming forward and explaining how important (development) of some sort will be at 600 Boardwalk and how it affects their business,” he said. “I’m seeing retail stores closing on that end of the boardwalk. It’s a hardship for the surrounding business community there. It results in closed stores, which are lost jobs, a negative impact and it kills our reputation of visitors wanting to come to the boardwalk when that happens.”
Levchuk said doing nothing is not an option.
“I would not be honest if I continued down the ‘I don’t know, let’s be patient’ road, because I know what that is. That is, you go this way, it’s a dead end. There’s nothing going on that way if we stay the course we are on. We take a turn, we bring it back to City Council and we have further discussion on this and we move forward with something,” he said.
Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said if City Council were to designate the area in need of rehabilitation, that does not approve any particular project.
“It could end up being something completely different from the proposals you have heard to date,” she said. “It just puts you in a position to negotiate with someone who would like to be the designated developer as to what the zoning standards, including use, would be.
Councilman Tony Polcini thanked Levchuk for his statement.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said.
Polcini said when he voted against sending the property to the Planning Board, it was out of fear of hotels lining the boardwalk.
“After a month and a half and getting more facts and information, you know it’s all about numbers,” he said.
Polcini said since City Council would be in control of a redevelopment plan, “I don’t think there’s any harm in bringing it back to the zoning board for just that fact.”
– By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff