The entrance to the housing construction site is on Fourth Street.
Preliminary work has begun on what will be the Ocean City Housing Authority’s most ambitious affordable housing project ever.
The 60-unit Pecks Beach Village development will feature 15 duplex-style buildings on the north side of Fourth Street.
A contractor is using heavy equipment to clear the site in preparation for the start of full-scale construction.
Bob Barr, chairman of the housing authority’s board, said there are plans to hold a formal groundbreaking ceremony sometime in March.
Construction work is expected to take between 18 months and two years, putting the completion date sometime in 2027 or possibly early 2028.
An architectural rendering depicts the duplex-style design of the 60-unit housing development.The project is a centerpiece of the authority’s strategy to modernize its affordable housing stock with new, attractive units for families now living in the existing Pecks Beach Village, a complex dating to the 1960s.
“What this means for Ocean City is years of hard work,” Barr said of the culmination of all the planning that led up to the start of construction. “It continues the housing authority’s and city’s goal to provide exceptional, affordable housing that anybody would be proud to live in.”
Barr emphasized that the Pecks Beach Village development will reflect the housing authority’s strategy to build new projects that are compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods.
“It is designed to fit in with the surrounding neighborhoods. If you drive by, you would never know that it’s affordable housing,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
The authority awarded a $23 million construction contract for the Pecks Beach Village project in 2024 to Gary F. Gardner Inc. of Medford, N.J., but construction couldn’t begin until the funding arrangements for the project were finalized recently.
Financing will consist of a mix of grants and loans from the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, funding from the city of Ocean City and tax credits given to private investors. The project will help Ocean City meet its state-mandated obligation to provide its “fair share” of affordable housing under a court settlement in 2018.
The existing 40-unit Pecks Beach Village housing complex on the south side of Fourth Street will be demolished when the new project is completed.
In recent years, the authority has been replacing antiquated, flood-prone housing developments dating to the 1960s with attractive new affordable housing complexes that blend in with the local neighborhoods.
The existing Pecks Beach Village housing complex on Fourth Street dates to the 1960s. It will be demolished when the new project is completed.In 2021, the authority built the nearly $7 million Speitel Commons housing complex for senior citizens. The four-story building includes 32 units at the corner of Sixth Street and West Avenue. It was hailed as a success for integrating public housing with attractive architecture in the heart of downtown Ocean City.
Following up on Speitel Commons, the authority embarked on a new type of project in 2024 that featured five duplexes totaling 10 units of affordable rental housing for families having low or moderate incomes.
The distinctly residential duplexes on Bay, Simpson and Haven avenues were designed to seamlessly fit in with the surrounding neighborhoods.
Taking it to the next level, the construction of the new, 60-unit Pecks Beach Village project represents the authority’s biggest and most expensive project ever.
