Boardwalk hotel developer to make another pitch for project

Supporters, opponents and others who simply have not yet made up their minds will have a second chance to hear about a proposal to transform the defunct Wonderland Pier site into a luxury hotel resort on the Ocean City Boardwalk.

Hotel developer Eustace Mita will make a presentation on his plans for a $135 million to $155 million project during a public meeting scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Ocean City Tabernacle, 550 Wesley Ave.

Mita, owner of the ICONA brand of upscale resorts at the Jersey Shore, faced intense questioning from a packed crowd of local residents during his first public presentation on the project on Nov. 25 at a meeting organized by Councilman Jody Levchuk.

Councilmen Dave Winslow and Tony Polcini worked together to set up Wednesday’s meeting to give Mita another opportunity to share key details of his project with the public.

“We’ve asked him to provide some additional details on what it’s going to look like and the site plan,” Winslow said.

Winslow noted that they chose the Tabernacle’s large auditorium as the venue “because we think we’re going to get a huge audience again.”

Mita, who owns the former Wonderland site, is proposing to build a 250-room hotel that would include 375 parking spaces tucked underneath the building. Amenities would include 10 to 12 retail shops clustered within a promenade overlooking the Boardwalk.

    Eustace Mita describes his plans for the "ICONA in Wonderland" luxury resort during a presentation on Nov. 25.
  

Opponents believe the sprawling, 7½-story resort hotel would overwhelm the surrounding residential neighborhoods with its massive size and the extra traffic it would generate.

Mita says the project would help Ocean City to recover a large chunk of the nearly 2,000 hotel and motel rooms it has lost in the last 30 years because of the city’s evolution into more of a vacation market of condos and second homes.

“The No. 1 revenue generator in Ocean City is tourism. Hotel rooms (are the) No. 1 supporter of tourism,” Mita said during his presentation on Nov. 25.

The hotel would be called “ICONA in Wonderland” in a nod to the amusement park’s long history as an iconic Boardwalk attraction. Mita also plans to incorporate Wonderland’s landmark 140-foot-tall Ferris wheel and the historic carousel dating to the 1920s into his hotel designs.

Local preservationists, though, want the site revived as a modern version of Wonderland Pier, complete with amusement rides and other family-friendly attractions.

During a community meeting on Saturday, the local preservation groups Friends of OCNJ History & Culture and Save Wonderland presented conceptual plans for an amusement park-style development that they called “Wonderland Square” or Wonderland Commons.”

Their plans would include an array of amusement rides, an arcade, a playground, a children’s theater, a band shell, a bowling alley, water features for model boats and other family attractions wrapped up in a town square-like design.

“Something new needs to rise here,” Bill Merritt, president of Friends of OCNJ History & Culture, said of efforts to revitalize the former Wonderland site.

    Rendering of conceptual plan for what would be called "Wonderland Commons" or "Wonderland Square." (Courtesy of Friends of OCNJ History & Culture)
  

Although Merritt’s group is raising money as an incentive for a developer to come in and possibly build an amusement project, the fact remains that Mita owns the property and wants to build a high-end hotel.

One controversial aspect of Mita’s plans is his request for City Council to formally designate the site “in need of redevelopment,” a move that would bypass local zoning laws and allow the hotel to be built in an area of the Boardwalk that currently allows only retail shops, restaurants and amusements.

City Council members Keith Hartzell and Sean Barnes stated their opposition to high-rise hotel construction on the Boardwalk during Saturday’s community meeting.

“I’ve been against (the project). I’m staying against it, and that’s the way it’s going to be,” Hartzell said

Barnes said in an interview that he is opposed to “any high-rise hotel development on the Boardwalk – period.” However, he added that he would review any hotel proposal on the Boardwalk “as objectively as possible” if one is presented to him.

Other Council members and Mayor Jay Gillian have indicated that they are carefully listening to the reaction from local residents and business owners before they take a position on Mita’s project.

Gillian’s family operated Wonderland Pier for nearly 60 years at Sixth Street and the Boardwalk. Gillian closed the amusement park on Oct. 13 following years of financial difficulties.

Mita invested in Wonderland in 2021 to save it from a sheriff’s auction after Gillian defaulted on an $8 million mortgage for the park. Afterward, Mita took control of the property.

    The gates are pulled down on Wonderland Pier's now-closed front entrance overlooking the Boardwalk.