Boardwalk hotel opponents sound off

Opponents of a proposed luxury hotel at the former Wonderland Pier site on the Ocean City Boardwalk are ramping up their campaign in hopes of preventing the property owner from ever developing the $150 million project.

Representatives of Ocean City 2050, a local community group that has been particularly critical of the hotel plans, presented City Council with copies of an online petition that urges the governing body not to declare the Wonderland property as an area “in need of rehabilitation.”

Susan Cracovaner, a spokeswoman for the group, handed a boxful of petitions to Council President Terry Crowley Jr. during the governing body’s meeting Thursday night. Members of Ocean City 2050 said that 425 people have signed the online petition so far.

Reading from the petition, Cracovaner said that if the city ever grants the Wonderland site rehabilitation status, it will set “a dangerous precedent for Ocean City’s family-friendly Boardwalk and the city as a whole.”

However, the Council members made no comments in response to public remarks by representatives of Ocean City 2050 and other hotel opponents.

“The (rehabilitation) designation is not supported by the facts and fundamentally mischaracterizes what is being proposed. Rather than a true rehabilitation of an existing use, the designation is being used to facilitate a massive transformation of the site’s scale, character and use – one that bears no resemblance to rehabilitation,” Cracovaner said while reading from the petition.

    City Council makes no comments in response to remarks by hotel opponents.
  

In a crucial vote Wednesday night, Ocean City’s planning board rejected a resolution to declare the Wonderland site in need of rehabilitation. The board’s vote was deadlocked at 4-4, dealing a major setback in developer Eustace Mita’s attempts to build a 252-room hotel on the vacant Wonderland property.

Mita had sought the rehabilitation designation to create a legal pathway for him to develop his project in an area of the Boardwalk that currently does not allow hotel construction.

The planning board members who voted against declaring the Wonderland property in need of rehabilitation said they felt the site didn’t meet the legal criteria for the designation.

A team of engineering and planning professionals representing Mita had argued that the property was badly deteriorated and abandoned and cried out for rehabilitation.

After the planning board vote, Mita said he was “shocked” by the outcome and noted that he would consider withdrawing from the hotel project and putting the Wonderland site up for sale.

“I’m looking to do the best thing for Ocean City, and they just denied it,” he said of the vote.

    An architectural rendering depicts developer Eustace Mita's proposed resort hotel on the Ocean City Boardwalk.
  

Now that the planning board has rejected the rehabilitation designation, hotel opponents fear that the issue will come back to Council for a vote by the governing body in Mita’s favor.

In December, Council voted 4-3 to ask the planning board to consider recommending the Wonderland property for rehabilitation. Council, though, has the power to reverse the board’s decision or pursue a different zoning process for Wonderland’s redevelopment.

Ocean City residents Dave and Marie Hayes, two other outspoken critics of Mita’s plans, also urged the Council members Thursday night not to consider granting rehabilitation status for the Wonderland property. They maintained that the Wonderland property falls short of the legal criteria needed for the rehabilitation designation.

“It is a gross abuse of the law to use rehabilitation where the clear intent is to demolish the existing structures and replace them with a development that is entirely new and radically different in use, density and community impact,” Dave Hayes said of the possibility of a hotel replacing the Wonderland amusement park.

Marie Hayes characterized Mita’s attempts to have the city declare Wonderland as a rehabilitation zone as a “blatant abuse” of state law.

“Do the right thing for our entire community and stop catering to the demands of Pennsylvania developer Eustace Mita,” Marie Hayes said.

    Hotel opponent Marie Hayes addresses Council while outlining her concerns about declaring the former Wonderland Pier site as an area "in need of rehabilitation."
  

Wonderland Pier had been owned by Mayor Jay Gillian’s family since the 1960s. Despite its history and iconic status, the amusement park closed in October 2024 following years of financial difficulties, leaving a vacant site at Sixth Street. Gillian recently filed for bankruptcy, citing nearly $6 million in personal debts.

Mita bought the Wonderland site in 2021 for a reported $14 million to save it from a sheriff’s sale after Gillian defaulted on an $8 million mortgage. He allowed Gillian to operate the amusement park until it shut down last year. When Wonderland closed, Mita proposed his hotel in place of the amusement park.

Opponents believe the hotel’s size would overwhelm the surrounding neighborhoods and would clash with Ocean City’s family-friendly image.

The city’s business community strongly supports the hotel, saying it would be an economic catalyst for growth and more tourism for the resort town.

Heather Neville, a Boardwalk business owner, told the Council members Thursday night that the hotel would help to revitalize sections of the Boardwalk that are suffering from Wonderland’s closing.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Neville said of the hotel project.

In closing her remarks, Neville said she thinks it would be “absolutely insane” for city officials not to fully support the hotel.

    Councilman Dave Winslow chairs an advisory subcommittee that is studying the zoning needs for the Boardwalk's commercial areas.
  

Prompted by the Wonderland controversy, Crowley used his power as Council president to form an advisory subcommittee in October that is conducting a comprehensive study of the zoning requirements for the entire Boardwalk’s commercial areas instead of just concentrating on the former Wonderland site.

Its mission is to take a holistic approach in reviewing the Boardwalk’s commercial zoning requirements in concert with the city’s master plan.

Councilman Dave Winslow, who chairs the nine-member subcommittee, said the group has been meeting every two weeks and “we’ve got a lot of work accomplished.”

He announced that the subcommittee plans to hold a public meeting next month to present its findings so far. The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 7 at the lecture hall in the Ocean City Free Public Library.

“This is a data-driven process. We’ve taken the emotion out of it,” Winslow said. “All nine members are attending every meeting and collecting a lot of data. We want to share the information we have so far.”

"We’re not going to have recommendations at this meeting, but we’re going to show you what we’ve found, and some of the things are going to surprise everyone,” he added.