Sea Isle City's Top Stories of 2024

Sea Isle City saw an iconic bar torn down, a commercial building destroyed by fire and the start of construction on a $21 million community recreation center during a notable year for news.

SeaIsleNews.com takes a look at the year in review with the top five stories of 2024.

    The LaCosta Lounge sign, a remnant of the legendary bar that preceded The Ludlam hotel, was sold before the building was torn down.
  

Landmark Bar Demolished

The last vestiges of the former LaCosta Lounge, one of the best-known bars at the Jersey Shore during its heyday, were demolished in October.

An upscale boutique hotel called The Ludlam is proposed at the corner of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Landis Avenue in place of the old LaCosta. Construction is expected to begin early in 2025.

The project will feature 26 hotel suites, 20 residential units, a restaurant, bar and small bakery. There will also be a swimming pool on the second floor for hotel guests.

Christopher Glancey, the hotel developer, said in an earlier interview that it will take two years to build the project.

Dating to the 1970s, the LaCosta Lounge was a throwback bar and nightclub that hosted multiple generations of partygoers. The bar was sold to Glancey and his business partner, Bob Morris, for $7.3 million in 2018, but kept on operating as the LaCosta Lounge under a lease until it closed for good in 2021.

The property later operated as The Ludlam hotel, bar and restaurant complex until all of the buildings were demolished in October.

    A massive construction crane looms over the community center.
  

Community Center Project Underway

After several years of planning, discussion and community input, Sea Isle City began construction in May on a $21 million community recreation center that promises to be a centerpiece of the town for decades to come.

Work continues on schedule heading toward the building’s completion in autumn 2025.  City officials and residents attended a traditional “topping off” ceremony Dec. 23 to celebrate the placement of the last steel beam for the project.

The last beam completes the community center’s steel superstructure and will allow construction crews to next pour the concrete slabs for the floors, install the roof and enclose the interior as work continues through the winter.

“What I’ve heard is, ‘Wow, you’re building this?’ Yes, we’re building this for the people of Sea Isle City and the visitors of Sea Isle City for decades and decades and decades to come,” Mayor Leonard Desiderio said in an interview at the ceremony.

Among the amenities, there will be a large gymnasium, indoor walkway and workout space for recreation. The building will also include space that local community groups may use for meetings, events and other activities. A theater and stage will be included.

    The intense fire caused part of the roof to collapse to the right of the Casa Taco sign.
  

Fire Sweeps Through Commercial Building

A roaring fire on Aug. 14 destroyed a commercial building in the heart of Sea Isle City’s historic Fish Alley neighborhood on Park Road.

The burned-out hulk still remains standing, but a demolition permit has been approved by the city to clear the site. The intense fire caused part of the roof to collapse.

Fire departments from Sea Isle, Avalon, Marmora, Ocean City, Ocean View and Strathmere battled the blaze for about an hour before bringing it under control. The cause remains under investigation.

The building had housed the Casa Taco and Casino Pizzeria restaurants. Casa Taco was engulfed in flames during the height of the fire and Casino Pizzeria also sustained damage.

Denise McPhillips, daughter of one of two sisters who own the property, said in an earlier interview that the plan is to redevelop the site after the insurance companies give their approval to demolish the building.

    Married couple Anthony Fani and Onnie Mancino, of Ewing, Mercer County, enjoy the wider beaches during a shore getaway in June.
  

Big, Beautiful Beaches Just in Time for Summer

The timing couldn’t have been better. Just as Sea Isle City was welcoming the summer crowds in June, the finishing touches were put on a beach replenishment project that dramatically widened the shoreline.

Previously, sections of Sea Isle’s beaches and dunes had been severely eroded by coastal storms. The waves literally washed away huge amounts of sand. In some cases, the beaches were stripped of the top layer of powdery sand and the dunes were sheared away to create steep, cliff-like edges.

However, the beach replenishment project included a total of 932,000 cubic yards of new sand from 73rd Street to 94th Street in the south end of the island and from 29th Street to 53rd Street in the central part of town.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency overseeing the beach project, also had the contractor reconstruct Sea Isle’s depleted dunes from 84th Street to 86th Street and from 88th Street to 92nd Street by adding 10,654 cubic yards of sand.

Sea Isle was the last of three towns — Ocean City and Strathmere were the other two — to have their storm-damaged beaches restored by the Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in a nearly $39.2 million project.

    A rendering depicts what the gigantic wind farm turbines would have looked like off the Cape May County coast. (Image courtesy of Orsted).
  

Wind Farm Legal Battle Ends

Following a lengthy legal fight, Cape May County ended its lawsuits in December against a proposed offshore wind energy farm after the state and federal agencies that had supported the project conceded it was dead.

The county had filed state and federal lawsuits to block the wind farm proposed by the Danish energy company Orsted 15 miles off the coast between Atlantic City and Stone Harbor.

In the suits, the county alleged that the project would have caused far-reaching economic and environmental harm to the tourism industry, commercial fishing, migratory birds and marine life such as dolphins and whales.

On Oct. 31, 2023, Orsted announced that it was abandoning its Ocean Wind One and Ocean Wind Two projects off the South Jersey coast, citing inflation, rising interest rates and supply-chain disruptions for its decision.

While Orsted retains the lease areas for the offshore wind projects, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has suspended the Ocean One lease area for three years. There are no current plans by any offshore wind developer to use the lease areas, county officials said.