OCEAN CITY – Before a standing-room-only crowd, the City Council voted 6-1 to kill the resort hotel complex proposed by Eustace Mita and ICONA resorts for the property that was home to the now-defunct Wonderland Amusement Pier.
Technically, the vote was against sending a request to the Planning Board to study the area as a possible redevelopment zone, but it has the same effect as killing the whole proposal.
Without the flexibilities offered under redevelopment statutes, Mita will not go forward with his $150 million plan for the eight-story boardwalk resort. He said he will sell the land and move on.
Thirty-seven individuals went to the podium during public comment, with many voicing strong opposition to the plan. A number spoke in favor of the plan, but their comments gained no traction amid the more vocal sea of opposition.
The effort to get the land declared an area in need of redevelopment was an early step in what would have been a long process of required approvals. Failing this first step, the proposal appears dead.
Mita bought the land the Wonderland Pier occupied from Mayor Jay Gillian and his family when the pier fell into debt. He then leased it back to him so that the pier amusements could continue.
The developer was not given time for another formal proposal at the council meeting, but he did go to the podium during public comment. He defended the wisdom of a grand hotel complex in tourist-centered Ocean City, and he accused opponents of the plan of spreading misinformation.
He was interrupted several times, and both the council president and the mayor called on the public to respect his time at the podium.
Council members spoke on the plan for more than 30 minutes after members of the public had their say, but only council Vice President Pete Madden voted in favor. There was support among council members for a review of the city’s master plan with a focus on the boardwalk area.
But Madden said the governing body was kicking the can down the road with calls for a master plan reexamination.
Council member Tony Polcini said development is needed at that end of the boardwalk, and “Mr. Mita is the man to do it.”
In the end, however, Polcini, like others on the council, advocated a master plan process that would add years to any decision on a hotel complex. For Mita, that would have involved years more of delay. The developer has been shopping his vision for a resort in the style of the grand hotels of another era for more than five years, without success.
Mita has long maintained that Cape May County is in dire need of more hotel rooms, especially high-end resort accommodations. He has proposed his potentially historic investment of $150 million at the county’s southern tip in Cape May and at its northern border in Ocean City, only to be rebuffed both times.
He first brought his proposal for a grand hotel complex to Cape May in 2021. There, too, he already owned the land. He paid top dollar in 2019 for the property that hosted the old Beach Theater, then added some of the surrounding properties. Part of his pitch to the city was that the proposed hotel complex would be near the city’s convention hall.
Cape May residents came out in opposition to the plan and to the sheer scale of the proposed structure. The Cape May City Council made clear it would not support a special designation for a redevelopment zone. Mita then took his proposal to Ocean City.
After the Ocean City meeting, Mita was visibly disappointed, holding his head in his hands at one point.
People who want to view and listen to the almost two hours of public comment can do so here.
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
