By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Bayview Manor, an affordable housing complex for senior citizens, is getting a facelift to transform the outdated building from the 1960s into a more attractive companion for a brand new project next door.
The Ocean City Housing Authority is sprucing up the facade, replacing 150 windows and adding a new roof to the five-story building on West Avenue near the corner of Sixth Street.
City Council President Bob Barr, who also serves as chairman of the housing authority’s board, said Bayview Manor has been showing its age and needs to be renovated both inside and out.
“It was built in the early to mid-1960s. You walk in there and it’s outdated,” Barr said in an interview Monday. “Our goal is to update it. It’s just a continual upgrade.”
The renovations are designed to make Bayview more compatible with the housing authority’s nearly $7 million Speitel Commons complex that opened next door over the summer.
The four-story, 32-unit Speitel building, which also provides affordable housing for senior citizens, has been widely praised for its modern architecture that adds an attractive new touch to Ocean City’s downtown business district.
“That is the plan – to make the building complementary,” Barr said of Bayview Manor’s relationship to Speitel Commons.
All along, the housing authority has wanted its two buildings on West Avenue to blend in with the rest of the surrounding downtown neighborhood, an enclave of retail, commercial and public buildings that include the Ocean City Fire Department headquarters across the street.
“It is something that is more becoming of Ocean City. The goal is to drive by the building and think that it is an apartment or condo complex and not know that it is affordable housing,” Barr said of the renovated Bayview complex.
Once the renovations are completed to the nearly 50-unit Bayview Manor, it will share facilities with Speitel Commons in a campus-like setting. Bayview will include a community center for residents of both buildings and office space for the housing authority on the first floor.
Upgrades to Bayview’s exterior are in progress. At the same time, plans are being made to renovate every residential unit in the building. New windows, new appliances and a new paint job will modernize the units, Barr said. The units are also getting new air-conditioning and heating systems.
“Right now, we are beginning the process of renovating every single unit in Bayview Manor,” Barr said. “Every unit will be totally renovated with all new stuff – from soup to nuts.”
The housing authority hopes to go out to bid in November for the project, which is expected to take a year to complete, he said.
The cost of Bayview Manor’s total makeover – exterior and interior – wasn’t immediately available Monday.
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.
The city contributed more than $2 million toward the Speitel Commons project, while the New Jersey Housing Mortgage and Finance Agency provided $4.5 million in funding.
Now that Speitel Commons has been completed, the 20-unit Pecks Beach Village senior-citizen complex on the north side of Fourth Street will be demolished to make room for the development of new affordable housing units for families. Seniors who had been living in the flood-prone part of Pecks Beach Village have been moved to Speitel Commons.
Families are currently living in the aging, 40-unit Pecks Beach Village development on the south side of Fourth Street. The family units are not as vulnerable to flooding as the senior citizen units.
Eventually, the plan is to also demolish the existing family units in Pecks Beach Village to create space for a new 60-unit complex of affordable housing for families.
Rick Ginnetti, owner of the Brooke Group, a development consultant for the housing authority, estimated that the new family units at Pecks Beach Village will cost $22 million to $23 million.
The project remains in the early stages, including identifying possible funding sources. Construction may possibly start in 2023 and take about 14 to 18 months to complete, Ginnetti said in an interview in August.
