By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
A groundbreaking ceremony will be held April 4 for a long-awaited project named in honor of an Ocean City Housing Authority commissioner who was an advocate for affordable housing for senior citizens.
Five years in the planning phase, the 32-unit Speitel Commons project will provide housing for senior citizens who are now living in a flood-prone area of town in the authority’s Pecks Beach Village development.
A $6.9 million construction contract has been awarded. The project will be constructed on what is now a parking lot adjacent to the housing authority’s Bayview Manor complex at Sixth Street and West Avenue.
The new building will be named in memory of the late Edmond C. Speitel Sr., a housing authority commissioner. Speitel, who was chairman of the authority’s finance and redevelopment committees, helped to oversee the new project from the conceptual phase.
By dedicating the building in Speitel’s honor, it will ensure that his legacy at the agency will always be remembered, said Bob Barr, a city councilman who also serves as the housing authority’s chairman.
“Literally, this was his baby. It was his project to make Ocean City a better place for senior citizens,” Barr said in an interview Wednesday while announcing the groundbreaking date.
The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for noon on Saturday, April 4 at Bayview Manor. The public will be invited to the ceremony, which is expected to include a coterie of city, county, state and federal officials and dignitaries. Edmond Speitel’s wife of 40 years, Diane, will be invited, Barr noted.
“Ed won’t be with us physically, but he will be with us spiritually. He will be smiling down on us,” Barr said.
Speitel, who owned an engineering firm, took on a leading role in reforming the authority’s management and finances following the 2017 firing of former Executive Director Alesia Watson, who pleaded guilty to embezzling from the agency. Watson was sentenced to three years of probation after she admitted she had embezzled federal housing funds to pay credit card bills for personal expenses.
The authority agreed to name the project in Speitel’s honor in November 2017, two months after his death at age 61.
“Really, this building is about Ed’s vision to create a better place for senior citizens and a place that represents what Ocean City is all about,” Barr said.
Senior citizens who now live in the authority’s flood-prone Pecks Beach Village housing complex on Fourth Street will be moved over to Speitel Commons when it is completed. Barr estimated the project will take 12 to 18 months to finish, with a grand opening sometime in 2021.
The groundbreaking will symbolize the housing authority’s dramatic turnaround from turbulent times that prompted a series of management and financial reforms following the 2017 embezzlement scandal.
Underscoring its financial recovery, the housing authority received a “clean” audit in the last two years and is now debt free.
After rebuilding its shaky finances, the authority has been able to enter into funding partnerships with the state and city to build Speitel Commons.
Although the construction contract for the project is $6.9 million, the full cost is expected to be closer to $8 million, according to Rick Ginnetti, a consultant for the housing authority.
The full price tag will include construction, planning, engineering, design, permitting, insurance and the expense of relocating residents from Pecks Beach Village into the new building.
Approval of $4.5 million in funding from the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency has set the stage for construction to begin.
Ginnetti said that while the funding is technically called a mortgage, it is actually closer to a grant. The housing authority will make no principal or interest payments on the mortgage, which will simply disappear after five years, he said in an interview in September.
In 2019, City Council approved a $6.6 million bond ordinance to build or rehabilitate affordable housing sites for senior citizens and low-income families. The projects will help Ocean City meet its state-mandated obligation to provide its “fair share” of affordable housing as part of a court settlement in 2018.
One of those projects is the Speitel Commons complex. The city is expected to contribute more than $2 million toward the project.
In addition, a shared-services agreement with the city will also allow the housing authority to undertake a $2.7 million rehabilitation of 61 units of affordable housing at Bayview Manor.
As a public agency, the authority uses federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide affordable housing for low-income senior citizens, families and the disabled at Pecks Beach Village and Bayview Manor.
Pecks Beach Village was swamped by storm waters from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, underscoring the need to develop new housing in a location less vulnerable to flooding.
The housing authority will demolish the senior citizens portion of Pecks Beach Village, located on the north side of Fourth Street, after the Speitel Commons project is completed.
Pecks Beach Village also includes affordable housing for low-income families. The 40 family units are located on the south side of Fourth Street. The family units will stay for the time being, although there are longer-range plans to replace them with new housing construction.
