Ocean City’s Crown Bank Bankruptcy Hearing Moved to Dec. 27

By MADDY VITALE The decision on who will purchase the nearly 100-year-old landmark Crown Bank building in downtown Ocean City will have to wait yet again, with a second postponement in weeks. A hearing scheduled for Dec. 13 was postponed until Tuesday, at the request of the court. And then the court adjourned the hearing a second time until Dec. 27 at 10 a.m., court personnel confirmed. “I received a message from the court that the judge wanted to move the hearing to next week,” Ray Patella, an attorney for the Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee, Brian Thomas, said in an email Tuesday. The building, at the corner of Eighth Street and Asbury Avenue, is listed for $7 million in bankruptcy court in Camden before Judge Andrew B. Altenburg Jr. There are currently two offers on the table for the property. Patella noted Tuesday that “the trustee has not received further offers” to buy the building. The first offer came from Eustace Mita, of Icona Resorts, to buy the building at 801 Asbury Ave. for $6.5 million as part of his plan to transform the property into a luxury boutique hotel. Mita owns beach resorts in Avalon, Cape May and Diamond Beach under the Icona Resorts brand. The Crown Bank building currently has retail space in the grand lobby. A second offer came in on Monday, Dec. 12, from local real estate investor Raj Khatiwala, of Ocean City, and his brother, Yogi. They offered $6.675 million under their company, Ocean City Crown Holdings LLC. The Khatiwalas are founders of the real estate investment company Eclat Investments, according to the company’s website, eclatinvestments.com. They own several properties in town. Among their Ocean City businesses are The Scarborough Inn, The Beach House, The Pavilion, The Forum, Bluewater Inn Hotel and Ocean Breeze Hotel. They also own Stainton’s A Gallery of Shops in the downtown and Stainton’s Gallery by the Sea on the Boardwalk. Stainton’s A Gallery of Shops is across the street from the six-story Crown Bank building. The building dates to 1925. It is a 33,440-square-foot concrete building consisting of five floors and a mezzanine area. The property sale would also include five parking lots. The site has multiple potential uses. “Subject to municipal approvals, possible future uses for the building include, but are not limited to: downtown luxury hotel use; residential condoing; nursing home/senior housing use; dormitory for J-1 Visa students,” according to a description on real estate websites. (Aerial photo of the Crown Bank building and the parking lots included in the property. (Courtesy of LoopNet.com)