Ocean City Council Votes to Rezone Closed Gillian's Wonderland Pier Site, Opening Door to 252-Room Hotel

A Shore Landmark Closes, a Developer Moves In

Gillian's Wonderland Pier operated on Ocean City's boardwalk for decades. David Gillian founded the original Fun Deck around 1930. His son Roy relaunched it as Wonderland Pier in 1965, and the park became synonymous with Jersey Shore summers. Its 144-foot Giant Wheel, carousel, and monorail drew families for generations.

The park closed in October 2024. Ocean City mayor Jay Gillian, who at one point owned the business himself, cited a combination of rising inflation, insurance premiums, operating costs, pandemic disruptions, and the lingering financial damage from Superstorm Sandy. In a Facebook post, he wrote: "I tried my best to sustain Wonderland for as long as possible, through increasingly difficult challenges each year. It's been my life, my legacy and my family. But it's no longer a viable business."

Eustace Mita, owner of Icona Resorts, acquired the property in 2021, three years before the park shut down. After the closure, Mita proposed replacing the site with a 252-room hotel.

What the Council Actually Voted On

The council's 5-2 vote did NOT approve the hotel. It rezoned the site as "in need of rehabilitation," which is a procedural step under New Jersey redevelopment law that allows a municipality to begin a formal planning process.

The next required steps include the city drafting a redevelopment plan laying out specific development standards, holding public hearings, and securing additional approvals before any construction can be authorized. The 252-room hotel remains a proposal, not a green light.

The Community Divide

Ocean City is a small city with roughly 11,000 year-round residents that swells to more than 100,000 tourists per day during peak summer months. That tourism economy shapes how residents view the Wonderland site.

Supporters of the hotel argue the development would draw more visitors and inject economic activity into the area. Icona Resorts positions itself as a luxury brand, and a 252-room property would be a significant addition to Ocean City's lodging inventory.

Opponents are making a character argument, not an economic one. The concern is that replacing a family amusement park with a luxury hotel fundamentally changes what the boardwalk is. "It's not going to be like it was — every year we come down, something is taken away," Pennsylvania resident KR Watkin, 72, told FOX 29 when the park closed. That sentiment didn't disappear when the council voted.

Community advocacy group Ocean City 2050 criticized the vote in a statement, calling the council's decision a "strategic blunder" that results in "a stronger hand for the developer, and a worse outcome for residents." The group announced it plans to join other groups in filing suit against the city challenging the rehabilitation designation, citing "the council's failure to meet the statutory requirements for rehabilitation, its arbitrary decision-making, its willful disregard of known financial conflicts and its breach of fiduciary duty to the citizens it serves."

Ocean City 2050 said it supports a recent subcommittee report that called for "using traditional planning tools, not rehabilitation designation, to address this site," and said it would support a redevelopment plan that "enhances entertainment, respects the neighborhoods and protects our boardwalk's iconic look and feel."

The park closed because it was losing money, not because anyone wanted it gone. Mita owns the land. Under New Jersey property rights, he is entitled to propose a lawful alternative use. The question is what the redevelopment plan's standards will require of him.

The Process From Here

The city's next concrete obligation is drafting that redevelopment plan. Public hearings are required before further approvals. That process is where residents who oppose the hotel, or want specific conditions attached to any development, have their best remaining leverage.

The council's 5-2 margin suggests the votes exist to move forward, but the public hearing stage is unpredictable. New Jersey's redevelopment process gives municipalities significant authority to shape what gets built. Whether Ocean City's redevelopment plan imposes meaningful constraints on Mita's proposal, or simply clears the path for whatever he wants to build, is the open question that will define whether this process reflects the community's interests or just the developer's.

No timeline for completion of the redevelopment plan has been publicly announced.