4-3 vote reverses 6-1 decision in August; Wonderland parcel will be sent to Planning Board for review
OCEAN CITY – After three hours of public comment Thursday night, City Council members spent another hour providing excruciatingly detailed rationales before they voted 4-3 to refer the Wonderland Pier parcel to the Planning Board to determine if the property qualifies as “an area in need of rehabilitation.”
The vote reverses a 6-1 decision from August that turned down the referral.
The council vote, that kept a few hundred audience members in suspense until four hours into the meeting, threw a lifeline to Eustace Mita’s hotel proposal and to boardwalk merchants and property owners who came out in force to lobby council. The meeting was moved from the smaller City Council chambers to the Ocean City Music Pier to handle the large crowd.
Mita said he was prepared to walk away from his plan to invest $170 million to build a 252-room, eight-story luxury hotel on the site, even though council’s procedural vote was only about having the Planning Board rule on whether the site qualifies as “an area in need of rehabilitation.”
He had put the property up for sale immediately after the Aug. 21 vote, saying he was walking away then. Although he said he garnered two offers exceeding his $25 million asking price, he ended up delaying his sale, waiting for the outcome of Thursday night’s vote.
A majority of the more than 80 people who signed up for public comment spoke out in favor of Mita’s hotel plan and many cited their fears about the viability of businesses surviving at the north end of the boardwalk. They and representatives of all of the city’s business organizations said pedestrian traffic there greatly diminished without the draw of the Wonderland Pier amusement park, which closed in October 2024 after nearly 60 years in business.
That was double the number who spoke out during public comment back in August, when those opposed to Mita’s plan were in the majority.
In August, only council Vice President Pete Madden voted favor of referral. Late Thursday night, three council members changed their votes to provide the narrow 4-3 decision.
The three council members who would go on to vote against the referral – at-large member Sean Barnes, the Second Ward’s Keith Hartzell and Fourth Ward’s Dave Winslow – all said they believed the fastest way to proceed was to continue with the autonomous subcommittee Council President Terry Crowley Jr. formed in October.
The subcommittee is reviewing the entire boardwalk with plans to make comprehensive recommendations by late spring that include the 600 Boardwalk property but don’t focus solely on it.
The Third Ward’s Jody Levchuk and At-Large Councilmen Tony Polcini and Madden talked in favor of the referral.
Levchuk, Madden and Polcini cited the need for more urgent action, referencing the business struggles, and said it made sense to work both tracks simultaneously – continuing the subcommittee work while having the Planning Board review the property.
With the 3-3 split becoming obvious before the actual vote, attention focused on Crowley, the last councilman to speak on the issue.
“This has been such a challenging process because at the end of the day, everyone that sits up here wants to do the right thing,” Crowley said. “Believe it or not, there are no deals or any of that stuff that goes on.”
He said the subcommittee is important and doing good work, gathering information to make the best decision possible for the city.
“That being said, we’ve been elected to lead and not moving this forward right now is not leading, and not taking into account the business owners and the residents,” Crowley said.
“We can have a discussion. We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. The subcommittee work will continue and the referral to the Planning Board “can run concurrently.”
“We don’t know where we’re going to end up,” Crowley said. “We don’t know what the final answer is, but we’re going to move with integrity towards that.”
After his comments, the formal vote on the resolution came: Winslow, Hartzell and Barnes were opposed with Levchuk, Polcini, Madden and Crowley in favor. It passed.
Mita has owned the former Wonderland site since early 2021 when he saved it from foreclosure by spending what he said was $14 million on it, then leased it back to Jay Gillian, who continued to run the amusement park until announcing in August 2024 that it was no longer financially viable and would close two months later.
The site is zoned for amusements. A hotel is not an allowed use there and would require a zoning change.
Mita said his hotel would include 10 to 12 storefronts and would incorporate Wonderland’s century-old carousel and four other rides. His original plan included the Big Wheel (Ferris wheel), but he said this week the Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce asked him to donate it to the city, which could place it near the high school.
– STORY and PHOTO by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
At top, hundreds of people gather Thursday evening, Dec. 4, in the Ocean City Music Pier for the City Council meeting.
