Causeway Visitors Center Opens Today

The new visitors center on the Route 52 causeway opens today (Tuesday, May 28).

The facility will provide rest rooms, sale of beach tags and visitor information seven days a week between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The building also will house Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce offices.

The completion of the Visitors Center is the last major component of a six-year project to replace and elevate the busiest causeway connecting Ocean City to the mainland. The project included the replacement of two drawbridges at opposite ends of the causeway with towering fixed-span bridges. The final cost of the state Department of Transportation project will come in at more than $400 million.

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Michele Gillian said on Monday that the Chamber staff is still completing the move to the new facility and awaiting some visitor information material. But she said the Chamber felt it was important to staff the center as soon as possible to allow the public to take advantage of the center's recreational facilities.

The new building will feature parking, access to a fishing pier, mid-causeway rest rooms for pedestrians and cyclists using a new path separated from traffic, and sweeping views of the marshes and Great Egg Harbor Bay from a second-story deck. 

Gillian said the center will hold an official grand opening in September.

The visitors center is accessible from the eastbound lanes of the causeway heading toward Ocean City from Somers Point. Visitors coming from Ocean City will pass the visitors center in the westbound lanes and make a U-turn by pulling into the mid-causeway fishing pier entrance. The route is marked by blue "Info" signs.

The Chamber's existing Welcome Center at Ninth Street and Simpson Avenue will remain open and provide the same services through the summer.