111 condo units overlooking the Boardwalk
now have a construction permit.
By Justin Kelly
NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson
Soleil, a six-story condo hotel at Ocean Avenue and 11th Street in Ocean City, has a construction permit after more than twenty years on the drawing board. A 391-space garage is built first.
What was reported
- Soleil Resorts LLC has secured a construction permit for a six-story, 111-unit condo hotel at Ocean Avenue and 11th Street, overlooking the Boardwalk
- Mayor Jay Gillian told a community meeting that construction is expected to begin this year, and the city says a preconstruction meeting was held within the last month
- The 391-space parking garage goes up first and is expected to be finished by the summer of 2027, with the condo units built after it
The story
Ocean City's Soleil has a construction permit. The six-story building at Ocean Avenue and 11th Street, overlooking the Boardwalk, is planned as 111 condo units, and Mayor Jay Gillian told a community meeting on Saturday that construction is expected to begin this year. City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said the city learned as much at a meeting with the developer last week, and that a preconstruction meeting had already been held in the past month. The owner, Soleil Resorts LLC, declined to comment.
The order of work is the part worth holding on to. Construction starts with the 391-space parking garage, which is expected to be finished by the summer of 2027, and the condo units are built after it. The first visible sign that this one is real will be a garage rather than a building, and the units are a stage behind that.
The other thing to understand is what the units are. They would be owned individually, but the building is designed and required to run as a hotel, with a front desk and housekeeping, and owners would be limited to stays of no more than thirty days in a season. That is a different product from a condominium somebody lives in, and it comes with its own set of rules about how the unit is used and rented.
Soleil has been on the drawing board since 2003. The planning board turned it down in 2016 after three public hearings where neighbors argued it was too big for the block and would jam already-busy summer streets. The developer sued, and in 2017 a state Superior Court judge found the board had exceeded its authority and ordered it approved; final approval followed in 2021. The site sits across Ocean Avenue from the Flanders Hotel, and a 1995 deed restriction requires 152 of Soleil's spaces to stay available to the Flanders.
For anyone watching what gets built at the shore, the useful read is that an approval and a start date are different things, and this project is a long demonstration of the gap between them. A permit narrows that gap. Ground moving on the garage would close it.
A construction permit is not a completed building. Timing, unit counts and plans are as reported and can change. Written by Justin Kelly, NJ Real Estate Broker-Salesperson, from the OCNJ Daily article.
Our take
A permit and a scheduled build meeting are where a shore project stops being a rendering. If you own in Ocean City, watch the garage: it is the piece with a finish date on it, and it goes up before anything else.
