Restructuring Plan to Help Ocean City Oversee Major Projects in 2025

Ocean City will head into 2025 juggling about 30 capital projects – a massive undertaking involving millions and millions of dollars in construction that could get complicated at times.

Hoping to keep things running smoothly, Mayor Jay Gillian has proposed a restructuring plan to oversee all of those projects.

With City Council’s support, Gillian is creating a new Department of Capital Programs, Project Management and Engineering.

“Running the city is a big operation, and we’re always looking to improve efficiency,” Gillian said in a statement.

Council introduced an ordinance on Dec. 19 authorizing the reorganization plan. A public hearing and final vote on the ordinance are scheduled at the Jan. 9 Council meeting, 6 p.m. at City Hall.

The ordinance was introduced by a 7-0 vote. The Council members praised Gillian’s administration for implementing a restructuring plan to take on so many major projects.

“I think it’s very good to keep an organization dynamic as things change, and I’m pleased the administration recognized this and is moving assets and resources around so we can best utilize the staff we have,” Councilman Dave Winslow said.

Councilman Jody Levchuk said Ocean City will avoid becoming a “static organization” like some parts of corporate America that are “doing the same thing over and over again.”

“Organizational change is sometimes really necessary,” Levchuk said.

    Portions of the Boardwalk are slated for upgrades in 2025.
  

Most recently, the city has functioned with a “super department” combining the responsibilities of the Department of Public Works and the Department of Operations and Engineering.

The restructuring plan will see Public Works broken out as a separate department to concentrate on such things as repairing and maintaining the roads, the beaches, the Boardwalk, public buildings and other infrastructure.

“This is a massive operation on its own,” Gillian said of all of the responsibilities handled by Public Works.

As it stands, 2025 will be an extremely busy year for ongoing and entirely new construction projects throughout the city.

“Right now, we’re balancing about 30 capital projects, so we’re going to create a separate department dedicated to this work,” Gillian said of the need for the new Department of Capital Programs, Project Management and Engineering.

Major projects topping the list for 2025 include a new $6.1 million police substation that will be built overlooking the Boardwalk at Eighth Street. A $30 million renovation of the antiquated police headquarters at Eighth Street and Central Avenue is expected to follow later in the year.

Other big projects include upgrades to the Boardwalk, the city’s multiyear dredging program to clear sediment buildup in the lagoons and road and drainage construction to protect low-lying neighborhoods from chronic flooding.

The city is also planning to replace the modest and aging terminal building at the municipal airport. The price tag for the project has not yet been announced, but construction will be partly funded by a $3 million donation from Ocean City’s Berger Realty owner Leon Grisbaum, a former pilot. The new building will be named the Leon and Elizabeth Grisbaum Terminal Building, also in honor of Grisbaum’s late wife.

    Dignitaries symbolically break ground for the airport project in October.
  

With so many major projects occurring in the same year, the restructuring plan will allow the city to utilize “the talents of the staff to most effectively and efficiently administer the department and get the taxpayers’ work done,” City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said.

Grabbing the headlines in recent months has been a plan for a 252-room luxury resort hotel that, if approved by the city, would replace the defunct Wonderland Pier amusement park on the Boardwalk. However, the hotel would be a private investment and is not part of the city's approximately 30 public projects that will be overseen by the new department.