OCEAN CITY — With several questions yet to be answered, City Council moved forward on a shift from renovating the current public safety building to instead buying a former bank building on Asbury Avenue to fill the role.
The multistory building at 801 Asbury Ave. is newer than the current public safety building at 835 Central Ave., but not by much.
It was built a little over a century ago and has had periods of disrepair and renovation over the decades.
The ordinance introduced Thursday lists the purchase price at $12.6 million. That includes the parking lot across the alley.
For now, the total cost to renovate and maintain that building, how the adjacent parking lot on Central Avenue would be used and even what would go in the ground floor that is currently retail space if the city purchase moves forward all remain unknowns.
Plans are to have those answers before a public hearing and final vote, expected Oct. 9.
Timing is a little tight, according to Dottie McCrosson, the city attorney. That’s because of a change in state law sometimes described as a mansion tax, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy over the summer increasing the taxation on real estate sales over $2 million.
If the city does not close on the property by Nov. 15, the costs will increase by about $400,000 as the taxes take effect.
Ocean City Council has scheduled two votes on whether to buy 801 Asbury Ave. for use as a new police headquarters.
Also this summer, construction continued on a police substation near the Boardwalk, planned as the future home to the police summer operations. When that building is ready, McCrosson said, the patrol division will move in there.
The previous plan called for work on 835 Central to begin shortly after that building at Eighth Street was ready. The city has already leased space for police and court offices in 801 Asbury. That has worked great, McCrosson said.
“The space has functioned so well that it sort of begged the question; would this be a better space, and would it be more cost effective to use the space at 801 than to go forward with the renovation and addition to 835 Central?” she said.
The estimate for expansion and renovation at the current public safety building is over $30 million, although that number has likely increased with time, McCrosson said. If the Asbury Avenue building does not save money or is otherwise unacceptable, she said, the city can still move forward with the previous plan.
The city has been investigating the condition of the building, what it would need in terms of renovations and what the cost of operations could be, McCrosson said. But the clock is ticking.
“So we’re before you tonight on first reading, even before we’ve given you all the facts and all the details that we’ve gathered in due diligence,” McCrosson said.
Some members of the public do not want to see the police on Asbury Avenue, a retail shopping area second only to the Boardwalk.
Gloria Baker has shops in the first floor of 801 Asbury, a site known as The Shops at Asbury. Renting a small space within that retail area was affordable and a means to grow a local business, she told council.
Mayor Jay Gillian said Ocean City will take another look at buying the high-rise at 801 Asbury Ave. as a potential police building. It’s the latest of several plans.
“Essentially this purchase would put me out of business and leave me with substantial inventory and no place to sell it,” Baker said. “My livelihood would be gone.”
Baker said the city should support small businesses. She and other speakers also questioned the wisdom of having the Police Department in the middle of the retail area, saying the site of armed officers and people being taken into custody will change the feel of the downtown.
Someone else spoke in support of a yoga studio that rents space upstairs in the building.
Others raised concerns outside of council chambers. Jim McCallion is the former owner of the building, before losing it in a bankruptcy. This week, he expressed frustration with the proposed deal, with a sale price well over what the current owners paid in 2024 as part of a $6.67 million deal that also included property on Route 50 on the mainland.
So far, the principles at Eclat Investment, the owners of the building, have not responded to requests for comment about the potential sale. McCallion said he offered the building to the city for $6 million several years ago and there was no interest.
He alleged the roof was in poor shape when he owned the building, even suggesting it could be dangerous.
“That building should be condemned,” McCallion said. But the roof of the structure is owned separately from the rest of the high-rise, and he said he was therefore unable to make repairs in the years he owned it.
Mayor Jay Gillian on Friday confirmed that the roof has separate ownership under a condominium arrangement. He said the city would take a careful look at the structure before moving any deal forward.
With work set to start on a new substation, to be followed by extensive renovations to the police headquarters, Ocean City police are packing up some offices and making plans to keep operations running smoothly over the next four years.
“We’re completely looking at the building infrastructure,” Gillian said Friday. “We believe this path would save millions for the taxpayers. But we need the information first before we can make that decision.”
The current public safety building was built in 1902 as the first Ocean City High School and later repurposed. It has been home to police and the courts since the 1960s. The building at 801 Asbury went up about a century ago and had been a major commercial center, but the first floor with vaulted ceilings had been vacant for years when Crown Bank opened there.
On Thursday, council members agreed, although members Keith Hartzell and Sean Barnes wanted the city to continue to rent retail space on the ground floor. Hartzell said space in the downtown is at a premium and the city wants room for small start-up operations to grow.
Barnes said he is not worried about having cops downtown.
“I like the idea of seeing a police officer walking down the street at any given time. I don’t want them to be up there with AKs or anything, but if they’re walking down the street. We’re small town USA,” Barnes said.
The floors that the police and courts are currently using are state of the art, Council member Dave Winslow said.
“I was very, very impressed with that,” Winslow said. He added he was initially skeptical of the proposal when it was raised in July.
“I think it’s the best of both worlds. We move this process forward, but we’re not moving it forward to where we can’t change our minds,” Winslow said.
Ocean City Council approved a $6.3 million bond ordinance Thursday, which included funding for extensive Boardwalk work and $3.3 million for the purchase of two parking lots near City Hall.
The city had already proposed multiple options for a new police headquarters, including a combined building with the Fire Department. Depending on the final cost estimates, police could have a new home downtown.
“We can’t change history. I can’t change what I had for breakfast. But we can change what we’re doing going forward,” Winslow said. “And I think this is the plan that gets us to the end goal going much, much quicker than any other plan that we’ve put forward.”
Contact Bill Barlow:
609-272-7290
bbarlow@pressofac.com
X @jerseynews_bill
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