High Rise Hotel

Wildwood OKs two-block-long high-rise hotel
By TRUDI GILFILLIAN Staff Writer, (609) 463-6716
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Updated: Wednesday, March 15, 2006

WILDWOOD — The Zoning Board has approved a high-rise hotel that features two towers and covers nearly two city blocks.

The project by Riviera Holding Co., LLC, includes one tower that will feature 67 hotel rooms, 138 residential units, 2,000 square feet of retail space, a pool and a health club. A second tower includes 50 hotel rooms, 128 residential units, 2,640 square feet of retail space, a pool, health club, a juice bar and a spa.

One tower will border Ocean, Spicer and Spencer avenues, while the second will stretch from Atlantic to Ocean avenues between Spencer and Youngs avenues. The 240-foot hotel, which will sit in the city's hotel/motel zone, replaces several existing properties including one of the two buildings that make up the AA Heart of Wildwood Motel and the Riviera Resort Motel.

Six Zoning Board members approved the project in a unanimous vote Monday.

Board member Todd Kieninger said he welcomed the first-floor retail space that will front Ocean and Atlantic avenues and enhance retail options in the area.

Kieninger added that one of the towers features an indoor pool, which is an amenity that the year-round guests the city is trying to draw will appreciate.

While the new construction means the end of a couple of the city's older motels, Kieininger said the hotel rooms more than makeup for the number of lost rooms.

“We are adding rental units to the pool,” he said, likening the arrangement to similar projects in major metropolitan areas such as New York City.

The residential rooms, at the choice of the individual owners, will be placed in a rental pool just like the motel rooms.

Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr., who has long supported bringing high-rise hotels to the island, said the city will continue to see new high-rise projects as long as the market can sustain them.

“These people are investing hundreds of millions of dollars. Someone's not going to build if the market is saturated,” Troiano said.

While some oppose demolition of the small motels that the Wildwoods are known for, Troiano said many of those motels have seen better days and were not well-maintained.

“They outlived there usefulness,” he said.

He expects designs for the towering high-rises that will replace them to become Wildwood's new signature.

“Some people don't think change is for the better. I think it is,” Troiano said.

The Riviera project belongs to East Sussex Holding LLC and Pro Re Developers Wildwood 1 LLC. Among the principles is former professional football player Bart Oates, Garry J. Merritt and Gallagher Family Holdings LLC.

To e-mail Trudi Gilfillian at The Press:TGilfillian@pressofac.com