The old public safety building once served as a school before becoming the headquarters for the Ocean City Police Department.
A sign on the front of Ocean City’s public safety building says the three-story structure dates to 1884.
At that age, the building opened just five years after Ocean City’s founding in 1879 by four Methodist ministers as a Christian seaside resort.
But one of the city’s oldest buildings isn’t expected to be around much longer. The city is in the process of soliciting bids from demolition contractors to tear it down to make way for construction of a new public safety building on the same spot at 835 Central Ave.
Bids are scheduled to be opened on Jan. 27. Barring any hang-ups or delays with the bids, City Council is expected to award the demolition contract on Feb. 5.
It has not yet been announced by the city when demolition would begin. But when it does, it will be an unceremonious ending for the red-brick structure that began as a school in the late 1800s before transitioning into its current iteration as the police headquarters.
The public safety building dominates the block of Central Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets.
After the building is demolished, the property will be used for 66 temporary parking spaces, Mayor Jay Gillian said.
“We plan to add temporary parking for the summer, while we finish designs for the new public safety building there,” he said in a statement.
A sign on the front of the building indicates it dates back to 1884.Over the last few years, Gillian and members of City Council have debated different plans for the public safety building.
Gillian had once flirted with the idea of developing an entirely new public safety building that would combine the operations of the police and fire departments. He backed off after Council balked at the estimated $42 million price for a new building.
Attention then shifted to plans to modernize and expand the antiquated public safety building at an estimated cost of $30 million to $35 million.
But later, the city considered buying the century-old former Crown Bank building downtown for $12.6 million to serve as a new police headquarters. However, the city did not move forward with the purchase of the old Crown Bank in September after deciding it would be too expensive to renovate it.
With the former Crown Bank no longer an option, the city decided to build a new police headquarters instead of trying to modernize the public safety building or renovating another facility.
Construction of a new public safety building for the police department and municipal court will be funded with the help of the $30 million that was set aside to refurbish the police station.
As Gillian has stated, the city still needs to design the new building. The final cost for the building will not be known until the city receives construction bids in the future.
Shown here in the fall of 2025, Ocean City's new $6.1 million police substation is under construction overlooking the Boardwalk at Eighth Street.In a separate project, Ocean City is in the final stages of building a new $6.1 million police substation at Eighth Street and the Boardwalk. The police department is expected to move into the substation later this month, Gillian said.
The substation will give the police department a bigger presence on the Boardwalk and will serve as a temporary headquarters while construction is done on the new public safety building.
“The facility is a great new addition that will help keep our Boardwalk and all of Ocean City safe,” Gillian said.
