Town Trustees OK Redevelopment Plans

OCEAN GROVE, NJ-This oceanfront community doesn’t have the complex redevelopment issues of its neighbor to the immediate north, Asbury Park, but it does have a prime 3.2-acre site that has sat vacant ever since the 250-room North End Hotel was torn down in 1980. Now, the site is apparently ready for redevelopment.

The trustees of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association have approved a plan by Wesley Atlantic Village Enterprises LLC, or WAVE, to redevelop the site with a combination of a hotel, condos, retail and other commercial space, a parking structure and a pool. The approval culminates a several-year process during which some 50 developers showed interest in the project, according to Scott Rasmussen, president of Ogcma.

The project still has a way to go before ground can be broken, according to William Gannon, a local attorney who heads the WAVE partnership. The New Jersey DEP has to sign off on it under the Coastal Area Facility Review Act, and additional approvals have to come from the Monmouth County planning board and the Neptune Township zoning board and historic preservation committee.