Remnants of LaCosta Lounge Demolished in Sea Isle City

More than 50 years of history with Sea Isle City’s old bar scene vanished in mere hours Wednesday.

The last vestiges of the former LaCosta Lounge, one of the best-known bars at the Jersey Shore during its heyday, were demolished by a giant excavator that mercilessly tore apart the building with its metal claw.

Demolition of LaCosta’s remnants will make room for development of an upscale boutique hotel that will serve as one of the new centerpieces of Sea Isle’s downtown business district.

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. Completion is expected in the summer of 2026.

The boutique hotel represents the next generation of development for the high-profile location at the corner of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Landis Avenue, the main entryway to the downtown district.

When it opened in the early 1970s, LaCosta Lounge was built on the same spot where some of Sea Isle’s most historic businesses once stood, including the former Bellevue Hotel and Cronecker’s Hotel & Restaurant dating to the late 1800s.

LaCosta 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.

After LaCosta closed, the site was reinvented as The Ludlam bar, restaurant and hotel complex. Glancey and Morris had originally planned to redevelop the site in 2018 for a boutique hotel, but instead renovated the property for its transformation into The Ludlam. The Shorebreak Cafe was also part of the complex.

    An architectural rendering depicts what the new Ludlam boutique hotel project will look like when completed. (Courtesy of Christopher Glancey)
  

The Ludlam closed early this year. Now, Glancey and Morris have revived their original plan to build a high-end boutique hotel, also to be called The Ludlam, on the property.

“The project has always been about hotel rooms and the demand for hotel rooms in town. We’re going to remake this corner and bring it up to its best and highest use not only for the hotel rooms, but also as the best use for the community,” Glancey said of the broader economic impact the development will have on Sea Isle during an interview in June.

Sea Isle officials are relieved that the vacant bar has been demolished. The empty three-story former hotel is expected to be torn down Thursday. The deteriorated buildings remained standing throughout the summer tourism season, becoming a blemish on the downtown.

“The way it was sitting here all summer, it was an eyesore. It had to come down,” Sea Isle Councilman William Kehner said. “With the new structure coming in, it will be just beautiful.”

Kehner had a long association with LaCosta Lounge. He began working at the bar in 1974 as a night clerk before becoming the night manager under the previous owners, brothers Tony and Nick Giampietro.

    The old three-story hotel building that was part of the complex will be demolished next.
  

Local businessman James Bennett bought the LaCosta business from the Giampietros in 1993 and operated it through a lease until its closing in 2021. Kehner had left LaCosta for a while to take another job, but returned under Bennett’s operation to become the manager of the liquor store.

Kehner watched for a while Wednesday during the building’s demolition.

“Everything is progress, as they say. You know, everything moves on,” he said of LaCosta’s final chapter.

Kevin Stone, the excavator operator for the demolition company, Pineland Construction & Recycling, said everything was going according to plans.

By early Wednesday afternoon, the building that had housed LaCosta Lounge’s bar and liquor store was gone. Stone, who spoke during a break in the demolition work, said the former hotel building next door will be torn down in its entirety on Thursday.

Asked if there was any sadness on his part in demolishing the old buildings, Stone smiled and explained that he likes his job because “you get to destroy everything.”

Minutes later, he hopped into the excavator and began doing just that – destroying the last remnants of the LaCosta Lounge.

    Excavator operator Kevin Stone says the demolition work is going according to plans.