Proposed Ocean City Luxury Hotel Wins Backing of Boardwalk Merchants

A key segment of Ocean City’s business community threw its support behind a proposed luxury hotel on the Boardwalk that would take the place of the defunct Wonderland Pier amusement park.

Members of the Boardwalk Merchants Association voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposed “ICONA in Wonderland” hotel following a private meeting Wednesday at the Ocean City Music Pier with the project’s developer, Eustace Mita.

A buoyant Mita emerged from the 90-minute meeting saying that the backing of the Boardwalk Merchants Association represented an important step in his efforts to build the estimated $135 million to $155 million project.

“I think it’s a big boost for Ocean City,” he said in an interview. “It’s a great day for Ocean City.”

Wes Kazmarck, president of the Boardwalk Merchants Association, said that the hotel was endorsed by 90 percent of the members at the meeting. He was among those who voted in support of the project.

“What he is proposing is something that this town has never seen before. The concept he is proposing adds a lot of value to the town and the Boardwalk community,” Kazmarck said of Mita.

Kazmarck noted he is anxious to see another attraction replace the former Wonderland Pier at Sixth Street and the Boardwalk.

“That end of the Boardwalk definitely needs a new anchor,” he said.

City Councilman Jody Levchuk, whose family owns the Jilly’s brand of shops on the Boardwalk, attended the meeting, but declined afterward to say whether he voted for or against the hotel as a member of the Boardwalk Merchants Association.

“This is a private matter. This is a closed association,” he said.

Levchuk said he fully expected the Boardwalk Merchants Association to give its support to the hotel. He said the vote represented just one segment of the community.

“At the end of the day, this really doesn’t weigh that heavily. But I don’t want to downplay the Boardwalk merchants’ vote and make it sound insignificant,” he said.

Not all of the association members who voted are Boardwalk shop owners, Levchuk pointed out. He said most of them at the meeting are shop renters who don’t live in Ocean City and may have a different perspective of the hotel project.

“I’m not knocking them. Don’t take it as me knocking them or diminishing them,” Levchuk said of the shop renters.

    Architectural rendering of proposed "ICONA in Wonderland" resort hotel on the Ocean City Boardwalk.
  

Mita, meanwhile, is methodically trying to line up broad community support for the project. Within the next couple of weeks, he plans to seek approval from the Downtown Merchants Association, the group representing shop owners on Asbury Avenue.

He said he plans to approach City Council in April or May. Then, he hopes to submit his formal construction plans to the city’s planning board or zoning board about 60 days after meeting with Council.

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.

The project has been surrounded by skepticism since Mita unveiled his plans last November. Opponents have argued the luxury hotel would change the family-friendly atmosphere of the Boardwalk. They also believe that the proposed 7½-story building would overwhelm the surrounding residential neighborhoods with its massive size and the extra traffic it would generate.

However, Mita maintained that most of the people in Ocean City support the project, far outnumbering the critics who have been denouncing the hotel in the past six months.

“It reflects the groundswell of support from the silent majority, not the ones who have been screaming against it,” he said of the vote by the Boardwalk Merchants Association.

In pitching the project to the public, Mitas has said it 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.

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

    Wonderland Pier's landmark Ferris wheel towers 140 feet above the Boardwalk. It would be incorporated within the hotel project.
  

Mita is owner of the ICONA brand of upscale resorts at the Jersey Shore. His proposed “ICONA in Wonderland” project in Ocean City would include a 250-room hotel and 375 parking spaces tucked underneath the building. Amenities would include 10 to 12 retail shops clustered within a stylish promenade overlooking the Boardwalk.

In a nod to Wonderland, Mita plans to incorporate the former amusement park’s most iconic rides in the hotel project, including the 140-foot-tall Ferris wheel that towers over the Boardwalk, the historic carousel and the Wet Boats kiddie ride.

Mita is the owner of the Wonderland property. He invested in Wonderland Pier in 2021 to save the financially troubled amusement park from a sheriff’s auction after Mayor Jay Gillian defaulted on an $8 million mortgage.

The Gillian family had operated Wonderland for nearly 60 years. Despite Wonderland’s rich history and traditions, Jay Gillian closed the park on Oct. 13 amid its financial struggles.