Ocean City will buy two privately owned parking lots and refurbish the northern end of the Boardwalk under a $6.3 million funding package approved Thursday night by City Council.
The bond ordinance includes $3.3 million to acquire two adjacent parking lots on Central Avenue in the heart of the downtown shopping district next to City Hall.
The remaining $3 million in the bond ordinance will pay for upgrades to the Boardwalk, primarily at the northern end between St. Charles Place and Fifth Street.
Improvements will be made to the Boardwalk’s decking, foundation, stairs, ramps and railings, according to a summary of the project. The Boardwalk will not be widened.
Frank Donato, the city’s chief financial officer, told Council that the ramp to the Boardwalk at Moorlyn Terrace will also be replaced.
The $3 million in city funding for the Boardwalk will supplement two grants awarded to Ocean City for even more improvements to the famed wooden way.
One of those grants includes nearly $5 million that will be used for repairs to the Boardwalk’s deteriorated substructure near Third Street, better storm resiliency and new ADA-compliant ramps across the length of the Boardwalk, city officials said earlier this year.
From bicyclists to joggers and strollers, the Boardwalk gets a huge amount of traffic and needs constant maintenance. Meanwhile, the two parking lots are being bought from the owners of the former Crown Bank Building at 801 Asbury Avenue, a block from City Hall.
Raj Khatiwala and his brother, Yogi, of Crown Holdings LLC, acquired the Crown Bank Building and three adjacent parking lots out of bankruptcy in 2023 for nearly $6.7 million.
Donato said the city will buy two of those lots closest to the existing municipal parking lot behind City Hall.
Combined, the two new parking lots have a total of 44 spaces. The municipal parking lot behind City Hall has 71 spaces.
Mayor Jay Gillian noted that the two new lots will provide much-needed parking for the downtown retail district as well as for the city’s police department during the renovation of its headquarters building on Central Avenue between Eighth and Ninth streets.
“This is a great opportunity to take care of our police department while the public safety building is under construction and provide public parking in the long term,” Gillian said during the Sept. 12 Council meeting, when plans were first announced to buy the two lots.
The antiquated public safety building, a former school that dates to the late 1800s, will be modernized and expanded. The estimated $30 million project is expected to get underway in 2025 and be completed in 2026, according to a tentative timetable.
Ocean City operates surface parking lots, but a garage would be too expensive to build and operate, a study found.Parking shortages in the downtown area prompted the city to conduct a study last year to determine the feasibility of building a parking garage.
A parking consultant looked at the possibility of the city developing and operating a multilevel garage at three potential locations near the Boardwalk and one in the downtown business district.
However, the consultant concluded that a garage would be a money loser – both too expensive to build and too costly to operate.
