As Ocean City evolves, it shoots for the sky

The construction crew working on the new Ocean City Boardwalk hotel at 11th Street scurries around the narrow steel skeleton, disappearing into it with sheetrock and Tyvek, like ghost crabs fleeing the light on night beaches.

When it’s finished in July, the 54-room Monte Carlo Oceanfront will help evolve the face of Maryland’s only beachfront resort.

What began with rural hunting lodges more than a century ago is now rows of gleaming, skyscraper-like hotels that look more South Beach than family funland as the landlocked town grows the only way it can: Up.

Ocean City now offers 9,500 rooms on the 10-mile strip to accommodate the town's 8 million visitors annually. On summer weekends, more than 300,000 visitors swarm into the hotels and condos, making Ocean City the third largest metro area in Maryland.

The hotels, edged in the pastel and muted colors associated with beaches, are the end result of decades of general improvements of roads, utility infrastructure and beach replenishment as well as a reflection of families making more money, enabling them to vacation in ways that once were only available to the wealthy. In addition, the community has sought to extend the summer season and make Ocean City a year-round destination.

"We have been very fortunate,” said Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan. “We have been able to rebuild our city before it became old all at once like you see with so many other cities. And I think this reflects the interest in Ocean City.

“And that’s what needs to continue."

Changes in time, changes in design

Ocean City was established on July 4, 1875, the opening day of the Atlantic Hotel — 99 years after America first celebrated its independence.

From the mid-to-late 1800s, people stayed in boarding houses to hunt for waterfowl and fish for rockfish along the coast in the summer, said Sandy Hurley. She has worked with the Ocean City Life Saving Museum for more than 30 years and is steeped in area history.

Hotels changed with the country’s history, she said.

Around the 1890s, Hurley said, Victorian hotels such as the Atlantic and the Plimhimmon started to emerge in Ocean City.

"A lot of the structures in the early days were the big, wooden hotels on the boardwalk," said Susan Jones, the executive director of the Ocean City Hotel Motel Restaurant Association.

The Atlantic Hotel stood along the Boardwalk between Wicomico Street and Somerset Street. The original burned in 1925, but was rebuilt and is still in operation. The Plimhimmon was founded in 1894 and considered one of the finest Ocean City Boardwalk hotels. Standing between 1st and 2nd Streets, it burned down in 1962.

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READ MORE: Ocean City extends season but strives to be year-round

Hurley said that after the Great Depression and World War II, people began having more disposable income and could travel.

“It wasn’t just for the wealthy," she said.

Nightlife then didn’t mean heading to the nearest bar. Dancing was a common activity, and hotels usually had ballrooms with nightly dances.

"Those grand, old Victorian hotels were a big part of Ocean City for a long time,” Hurley said.

The landscape changed again around the 1950s. The invention of the modern-day motel paralleled the construction of the Bay Bridge in 1952. Now, people could drive directly to Ocean City, and they wanted to park in front of their hotel rooms.

From there, Hurley said, the motel gave way to the high rise and as hotel chains started to emerge in the 1990s, they brought a new style to the beaches.

Changes in Ocean City are not lost on beachgoers.

Betty Hummel of Milton, Pennsylvania, first came to Ocean City 40 years ago with her children. Her son now lives in Salisbury after falling in love with the seaside town.

But it isn't hotels and Fisher's Popcorn that brings the Hummel family back year after year.

"I think the beachy feel is in here," Hummel said, pointing to her heart.

The arrival of huge hotels doesn’t bother her. In her four decades of visits, hotels have changed a lot, and many have changed owners, she said.

"But they appear well-kept," she said.

With demand comes change

The modernization of the Ocean City hotel began in the 1970s, when the town's summer appeal began to expand into other months, according to Meehan. The mayor has been involved with government in Ocean City since 1985, when only a few mammoth hotels stood on the Boardwalk.

"They really started to become more conducive for year-round visitors," Meehan said.

The city actively sought those year-round patrons, introducing Sunfest in the 1970s and Springfest in the 1990s.

The city foundersthink they’re still seeing the benefits of that policy. In the last four years, hotel occupancy has risen: June occupancy rose from 70.7 percent in 2012 to 76.9 percent in 2016; July occupancy rose 75.2 percent to 85.3 percent in 2016; and August occupancy jumped from 79.2 percent in 2012 to 85.1 percent four years later, according to the Ocean City Department of Tourism.

Even though there are more rooms, the cost for those rooms has risen as people flock to Ocean City in greater numbers. The average cost of a June night was $162 in 2011 and $182 in 2016. A July room jumped from $220 in 2011 to $240 in 2016. An August room rose from $201 in 2011 to $230 in 2016.

Through taxes on those rooms, Ocean City has generated $48.32 million since 2012, according to the Ocean City Department of Tourism.

READ MORE: 8-story ‘iconic’ hotel would add to Ocean City skyline

Meehan says a lot of that is plowed back into city amenities and marketing.

Ocean City expanded the Roland E. Powell Powell Convention Center and put power lines underground from 15th to 33rd Street along Baltimore Avenue, an area with 25 hotels that Meehan calls Hotel Row — to help attract more name brand chains.

The city also tackled the narrowing beaches, which are subject to erosion from Atlantic storms, by spending $83.8 million on beach replenishment since 2005. Another $4.6 million worth of repairs was just approved.

"Once that beach replenishment came to be, that established the beach, and I think it helped give economic security for those who want to develop," Meehan said.

The town has invested in advertising, too, from $1.6 million to $6 million, to attract patrons from northern Pennsylvania and New York.

Because of this, he said, people are coming to town now who 10 years ago would not have done so.

The Hilton, Dunes Manor and the Marriott are among the types of hotels people are looking for, he said, and like the new Hyatt, those chains notice the Ocean City crowds, Meehan said.

He also said Ocean City hotel prices are less expensive than competitors.

“And I think that’s what you are going to continue to see moving forward," he said.

Ocean City now reminds Lisa Butler of Toms River, New Jersey, of what Atlantic City used to be like, she said recently as she patiently waited on a boardwalk bench for her shopping husband. She was one of many lured to the sunny wooden planks after a few consecutive days of temperatures above 65 degrees.

It was Butler's first time in Ocean City, and she was amazed at the sheer amount of hotels.

"This place must have a lot of people here during the summertime," she said. "We have been to Atlantic City, and it's a lot like how Atlantic City used to be. A lot of hotels on the waterfront."

The Ocean City style

And more hotels are sprouting up.

Ground was recently broken on the Hyatt Place Hotel on the Boardwalk at 16th Street with plans to finish by spring of 2018.

Two blocks south on 14th Street, the 86-year-old Commander Hotel finished $5 million worth of renovations this spring.

On 45th Street, another chain hotel is emerging — the Aloft Hotel will rise five stories above Coastal Highway.

Travel 15 blocks north, and the freshly opened 150-room Residence Inn run by Marriott greets visitors as they enter the town off the Route 90 bridge.

All the hotels say they are eager to fit in and uphold Ocean City’s atmosphere.

The Maryland town stands apart from most nearby Delaware, New Jersey and Virginia  beaches. Many of those towns favor old-fashioned, low-slung hotels and picturesque homes along the water, but as drivers head south on Route 1 leaving Delaware, the buildings give way to massive hotels with sleek, angular lines.

The farther south into the Maryland beach town, the bolder the skyscrapers.

When a hotel is designed, the architect takes into account the brand and the location of the hotel, said Keith Fisher, the architect who designed Hyatt Place.

READ MORE: Hotel to replace 45th Street Village in Ocean City

"The Ocean City Downtown Association has created a unifying look from 15th Street to the inlet, so down there you will find your coastal styles and beachfront, oceanfront type of look," he said. "From 15th to 90th, there is an open style. You can ride up the highway and compare styles. The brands are forcing the change and are becoming more modern in their design, so after that it is about designing the shape."

The muted and pastel colors on the buildings are what really make people feel as if they are in Ocean City, he said.

"We want it to be light and playful," he said. "It is definitely a building we want to design that a soon as you arrive you know you are on vacation.”

That color scheme will differ from a hotel in Baltimore or downtown Washington, D.C.

Existing hotels work to stay relevant with evolving technology and special experiences to bring families back, such as the nightly ice shows at the Carousel Hotel in the summer.

"You have to keep up with what the visitor wants to be successful,” said Jones, the executive director of the Ocean City Hotel Motel Restaurant Association. "And today’s travelers are looking for more space in a room. They like continental breakfasts. There are certainly some changes going on in town."

Much of what is being done with the evolution of the Ocean City hotel is to ensure hotels stay one step in front of their competition, Jones said.

And when hotels compete against one another to stay in front of trends, the whole town wins as the community edges more and more toward full year-round business, she added.

Even with all its changes, Ocean City has charmed Ann Smith of Brooklyn, New York. On a sunny April Wednesday, the first-time visitor sat on a bench on the south end of the boardwalk, which is still filled with an amusement park, arcades and other whimsical family attractions — and not towering facades.

These hotels weren't what she was used to when visiting the other Ocean City in New Jersey. That seaside town has a short boardwalk and many cottage-like homes crowding the shore, instead of mammoth hotels.

"The hotels are closer to the beach here. I like that," she said. "The buildings give off a beachy look with their very bright colors and pastels."

While interest in Ocean City continues to rise, there is no new land. That means old structures must be demolished to build new ones, or the town must expand to the mainland, as outlined in the 2006 Worcester County Comprehensive Plan.

For the moment, though, along with the sound of waves and cries of sea gulls, Ocean City will be a cacophony of whirling drills, whining table saws and crashing hammers as cranes raise pieces of hotels into place, sun glinting off the metal frames.

rghughes@delmarvanow.com

On Twitter @hughesg19