OCEAN CITY — The city is considering buying the six-floor former Crown Bank building at the corner of Eighth Street and Asbury Avenue, but has not decided what its potential use would be.
The building’s owner, 801 Asbury Associates LLC, is in bankruptcy; a trustee overseeing the building has it up for sale. The building comes with parking lots off Central Avenue, diagonal from the Municipal Court and Police Station.
The office building once teeming with occupants is mostly vacant, with a small number of businesses remaining on various floors, including the Ocean City Sentinel, which moved to the building after its building on Eighth Street was damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
The Second Chance consignment shop occupies the first floor former bank space that has vaulted ceilings. The former owner of the building considered adding a mezzanine above the first floor that would have created seven floors in the building.
A hair salon that occupied the other part of the first floor relocated more than a year ago on Asbury Avenue; that part of the building remains vacant.
The announcement about the potential acquisition came during Thursday evening’s Ocean City Council meeting in a report by Business Administrator George Savastano.
Savastano said the city has been in contact with the trustee and is working to get access to evaluate the condition of the building. The elevator has been out of service for more than a year, according to occupants.
He said the city has had some informal discussions with City Council about the potential purchase.
The next logical step, he added, is for the city to evaluate the condition of the property, including the structure, building envelope, mechanical and electrical systems, HVAC systems and determine whether there are any environmental concerns.
Mayor Jay Gillian wrote about the topic in his weekly newsletter Friday.
“The owner of the iconic six-story structure is under bankruptcy, and the sales listing of the historic building and adjacent parking lots provides a unique opportunity worth taking a look at. We hope to have professionals evaluate the condition of the building shortly. There are many public needs the purchase of this property could potentially satisfy,” Gillian wrote.
Savastano said he wanted to report on the potential acquisition at Thursday evening’s council meeting because plans are progressing to get engineering and environmental consultants prepared to evaluate the building and decide on the scope of work needed.
Ultimately, he said, the administration wants to bring contracts for those consultants before City Council in September so they can proceed with the evaluation.
“The administration considers this property to be extremely worthy of acquisition given its prime location within our downtown,” Savastano said.
He noted there are no “definitive ideas” for what the purpose of the building would be but it “clearly presents a number of options” to the public domain.
The city has been looking to replace the police station and municipal court because the building on Central Avenue is old and outdated. The administration announced at an earlier council meeting that it was going back and reviewing years’ worth of proposals for a new police station and/or public safety facility.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff