OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce has endorsed a proposed resort hotel complex on the city’s boardwalk at the site of the now defunct Wonderland Pier.

Eustace Mita, chief executive officer of ICONA, has met with opposition for his planned complex in both Cape May and Ocean City since 2022, but the proposal has been gaining support in the Ocean City business community after the closure in October of Wonderland Pier, at Sixth Street and the boardwalk.

Among conditions that the chamber placed on its support of the project is that Mita donate the amusement park’s 140-foot Ferris wheel to the city as a symbol of good will.

The chamber also wants a comprehensive traffic study that could be used to plan ways to alleviate the project’s impact on the already congested parking situation in the city.

Mita’s proposal for a $150 million resort had first been presented as a project for the old Beach Theater site in Cape May, across from that city’s Convention Hall. Mita bought the Beach Theater property and much of the adjacent block. He was seeking not just city backing for his proposal but also a redevelopment zone designation that would help the project avoid zoning rule delays.

The Cape May City Council rejected any notion that it would designate the area as one in need of redevelopment under state rules. Mita then took his proposal to Ocean City, where he met with opposition to a plan to use city-owned land at the end of the boardwalk. Mayor Jay Gillian announced he could not support the plan within days of Mita’s first presentation of it to the City Council.

Things began to change for Mita when Gillian, whose family owned and operated Wonderland Pier for decades, announced the amusement park’s closing, saying it was no longer a financially viable business. Mita owns the land the park operated on; he’d leased it to Gillian. His plans shifted to this property as the site of a future resort complex.

Mita still needs city support and is still seeking redevelopment zone designation for the project. He has been building business community support prior to formally asking the City Council to declare the old amusement park site an area in need of redevelopment.

Mita has said he plans a formal meeting with the City Council in July, where he will pitch the need for declaring the site in need of redevelopment.