Ocean City To Buy Iconic Downtown Building For New Police HQ

OCEAN CITY, NJ — Ocean City will no longer renovate their existing public safety building and will instead purchase the former Crown Bank building to serve as new police headquarters.

In the agenda for Thursday's City Council meeting is a bond ordinance to approve the purchase of the 801 Asbury Ave. building and the parking lot behind it for the cost of $12.6 million.

Earlier this month, Mayor Jay Gillian announced they were exploring the purchase of the Crown Bank building to see if it would be more cost-effective than the planned renovation of the existing public safety building. This announcement came as a surprise, as the plan at the time was only to renovate the existing building, and nothing else had been announced.

Originally, Gillian had wanted to construct an entirely new building to house both police and fire departments; that fell through due to high costs.

Police have already been working out of the Crown Bank building in rented space.

The Crown Bank building has been transformed into the Shoppes at Asbury, a collection of retail stores, since it was purchased by local investors and brothers Raj and Yogi Khatiwala.

The landmark building was constructed in 1925.

It is unclear what would happen to the existing public safety building if this gets approved.