Meeting Saturday will have facts, but not any recommendations
OCEAN CITY — This Saturday, the Ocean City Council Boardwalk Subcommittee will present an update on its findings.
The subcommittee is studying the zoning on the entire boardwalk, including the former Wonderland Pier amusement park parcel that has been mostly quiet since the park closed in mid-October 2024.
The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 7 in the Chris Maloney Lecture Hall at the Ocean City Free Public Library.
Fourth Ward Councilman Dave Winslow announced at the Jan. 8 council meeting that Saturday’s forum is intended to provide an overview of data collected and to share the information gleaned so far in their work.
He said there would be no recommendations, just what has been found so far. He noted there will be findings that “surprise” everyone.
City Council President Terry Crowley Jr. announced the formation of the autonomous subcommittee in the fall between competing meetings that focused on the 600 Boardwalk property.
Owner Eustace Mita bought the property from Mayor Jay Gillian in early 2021 after banks were foreclosing on Gillian’s loans for the park during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mita said he paid $14 million for the property. He leased it back to Gillian, who continued to run the amusement park for four more summers, 2021 through 2024.
Gillian announced the park would close for good in October 2024 because it was no longer financially viable and that Ocean City could not support two amusements parks. Playland’s Castaway Cove amusement park is four blocks south on the boardwalk.
After the amusement park closed, Mita announced plans to build a $170 million, eight-story, 252-room hotel on the site and asked for the property to be declared “an area in need of rehabilitation.”
In August, council voted 6-1 against referring the property to the city’s Planning Board for a rehab recommendation, but reversed that in a 4-3 vote in early December.
In between those meetings, Crowley formed the subcommittee to study not just the 600 Boardwalk property, but the entire boardwalk and make recommendations to council.
In early January, the Planning Board split 4-4, effectively letting the rehabilitation recommendation die. Mita wants that designation so he could move forward with his hotel, and has said if he doesn’t get it, he will sell the property.
Mita said back in August, after council first denied the referral, that he was putting the property, which has 300 feet of frontage on the boardwalk, up for sale for $25 million. He said he received two offers over that, one from the politically connected Norcross family and the other from Ryan Homes, both with plans to build housing at the site. (The property is zoned for amusements, not hotels or other types of housing.)
Mita has since been holding off on the sale hoping that council will decide on its own on the rehab designation, something some council members said they don’t expect to do before a full report from the subcommittee, if then.
The subcommittee is not expected to make its full report on the boardwalk until late April or May. It has been meeting every other week since the fall, according to Winslow and other members.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff