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OC's Booming With New Development
 | | Courtesy of Ocean City Development Corp. | | Somerset Street's winding brick walkway leads to the Boardwalk. |
Oversized beach birds – everything from a Birdwalk Elvis to the OC Hon Bird -- have landed all over Ocean City. A new rainforest has sprouted at Jolly Roger Amusement Park. Downtown's booming with the makeover of the brick-paved Somerset Street, a new bay-front pedestrian walkway, a retro ice cream parlor and three hotels in the works.
The ambitious downtown redevelopment continues moving forward as the city proceeds with plans for an expansive Sunset Park on the bay, a desperately needed parking garage that will also serve as a bus and Boardwalk train depot, and renovation of more aging facades.
Development -- new restaurants, clubs, attractions, hotel construction and renovations -- can be found up and down the 10-mile strip of sand.
The 100-room, five-story Bonita Beach Hotel just opened on 81st Street with an atrium pool and a huge sundeck. The Princess Royale Hotel on the Ocean at 91st Street, has completed an estimated $2 million worth of renovations.
The Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites on the Boardwalk at 17th Street added a new, oceanfront pool and 79 suites and expanded the Coral Reef Café. The Best Western at 26th Street has been renovated. And the Inlet Village at 45th Street and Coastal Highway will be replaced with a luxury hotel and condo complex, including shops and a bayside walkway leading to the Ocean City Convention Center.
Downtown, the Haven at First Street and the Boardwalk is being replaced with a new hotel, but the owner and the name will remain the same. A few blocks north, at Third and Boardwalk, a new hotel and a new Dough Roller restaurant will replace the existing Breakers Hotel and Dough Roller. The old Suntan Motel on Second Street and Baltimore Avenue is being torn down, to be replaced by a new hotel. And a new store is being built at North Division Street and Baltimore Avenue.
The downtown core, the once-thriving stretch from the Inlet to Fourth Street, is the focus of revitalization efforts led by non-profit Ocean City Development Corp.
Susan Jones, executive director of the Ocean City Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association, says she's heartened by the progress.
"A lot of downtown has been done; there’s just pieces in between that aren't very attractive," Jones says. "If we could just get those pieces in place, the whole thing is going to take on a new look, I think."
One of the key pieces, the Somerset Street project, beckons with a curving brick walkway, retro street lamps, signs and benches matching those of the Boardwalk, new facades on buildings and a Victorian-style gazebo.
 | | Jolly Roger's new Rain Forest creates a big splash. |
Earl Cantine, president of the Somerset Plaza Merchants Association, plans to bring free nightly entertainment -- acoustic acts, magicians, bagpipers, a Sinatra impersonator -- to what planners call a "model street" for downtown redevelopment.
"It's always been a challenge for Ocean City to bring visitors off the Boardwalk into the core of Ocean City," says Cantine, who owns the Somerset Street Gallery and a few Boardwalk stores. "And I believe that the 'model street' and other programs like it are going to help revitalize the core of Ocean City."
Six downtown buildings have gotten a facelift under a program in which the state picks up half the cost of redoing facades. And work has begun on five other facades.
Visitors will also notice more public art: a seascape mural on the side of the 16th Street Layton's, a new fountain surrounding the stainless steel white marlin at the foot of the Route 50 bridge, a sculpture of an osprey taking off from its nest at Fourth Street Philadelphia Avenue. And what had been a 90-foot-wide blank wall at Dorchester Street will soon be a painted montage of old Ocean City postcards.
OC's most visible new public artworks, about 75 beach birds, appear throughout the resort on the Boardwalk, at hotels and restaurants, along Coastal Highway, even atop a gas station canopy. Visitors have flooded the Chamber of Commerce with requests for maps showing where to find "Bob the Life Gull," "Jonathon Livingston Beagle," the "Dough-Dough Bird" and other beach birds.
But not everybody wants a map, says Lauren Taylor, one of the leaders of O.C. Beach Birds. "I ran into one lady who was talking about how much she liked them, and I handed her a map," Taylor says. "And she said, 'I don't want a map. I want to find them, then look at a map.'"
The sculpted birds, painted by local artists, will be on display until fall, then auctioned, with proceeds going toward permanent public art. Taylor, an Ocean City hotel and restaurant owner, says the online auction begins Oct. 1; the live auction, Nov. 1.
When they've had their fill of beach-birdwatching, kids can check out other new resort diversions. At the new downtown Dumser's Dairyland on Philadelphia Avenue, children can watch ice cream being made from scratch on the other side of big glass windows, then sit beneath the wicker fans and enjoy frozen treats.
At Jolly Roger's Splash Mountain water park, you can walk, climb and slide your way through a tree house at the new Rain Forest. Here, too, you can battle others with water guns, tipping buckets and water wheels. But watch out or you'll get soaked when the giant pirate dumps water.
For rain-or-shine adventure, head downtown to Dorchester Street and
the new Ocean City Train Garden, an 1,100-square-foot extravaganza with seven trains on three different levels, a 10-foot-high, snow-covered mountain, a trolley and a streetcar line, light rail and an underground subway station.
As the trains chug along to the sounds of bells, horns and whistles, you can push buttons to operate accessories. Check out the circus or firefighters trying to save a burning house or the bungee-jumpers.
And when you're famished, there's no shortage of OC restaurant options, including a few new choices.
Fausto DiCarlo, the owner of the critically acclaimed Italian restaurant
Ristorante Antipasti, just opened Fausto's at 116th Street. The new restaurant offers regional Italian food. John Trader, owner of the Galaxy Bar & Grill and Liquid Assets, also added a new restaurant. The windowless Nebula at 94th Street features a minimalist setting and seats just 35 diners.
Among new nightlife offerings is Jive on 82nd Street, with an interior along the lines of a New York martini bar and deck overlooking the bay.
The burst of development doesn't stop at Ocean City's official border. Across the Route 50 bridge and the city line, West Ocean City continues its remarkable transformation. The waterfront community once known mostly for its commercial fishing fleet has become hot real estate.
 | | The Ocean City Train Garden features seven trains on three levels. |
The new Martha's Landing, a residential community with its own marina, offers single-family homes with starting prices approaching $400,000. Nearby Shantytown, now in its last summer, is to be replaced with a residential development. And a developer plans a convention hotel in West Ocean City, which in turn could turn water taxi service from a notion to a reality.
You can almost picture a water taxi pulling into Sunset Park as a band plays, children frolic, water gurgles in a fountain and the sun sinks into the bay, painting the sky in shades of orange and crimson.
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Other Stories by Gary Gately
Carousel Rebounds, Dazzles Again
Tourney: Big Fish, Big Boats, Big Bucks
Artists Sculpt Dreams In Sand
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