Seaside Heights Motel Will Be Investigated for Potential Condemnation

Properties selected for an investigation into redevelopment declaration, Seaside Heights, March 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

A Seaside Heights motel whose owner, last year, objected to his troubled property being declared a redevelopment area, will be the subject of an investigative hearing before the borough planning board on both that designation and potential condemnation.

The Cloud 9 Inn, on Hamilton Avenue, was first cited as one of 13 properties to be considered as a potential redevelopment area as early as 2022. The borough council voted to send the matter to the planning board for investigation – a required step that includes a report by a private engineering or planning firm – and a recommendation to the governing body. At the time, the owner of the property objected, indicating that he would proffer his own report, presumably to counter any findings that the property meets the qualifications for the declaration.

The matter went largely silent until recently, when the borough set the investigation for a hearing at the planning board’s Jan. 27 meeting. The notice said the investigation will seek to find “as to whether such area should be designated an area in need of redevelopment for condemnation purposes.”

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While the redevelopment designation does not necessarily mean the borough does, indeed, plan on utilizing eminent domain to take the property, it does allow the borough to draw up a redevelopment plan and enforce its implementation. Occasionally, the designation prompts the owner to redevelop their own property, and in other cases it leads to a willing sale of the parcel. Condemnation is generally used as a last resort.

The motel has been standing since 1984 and was last sold in 2007 at the height of the “real estate bubble” of the time for $2 million, according to county tax records. It is located directly behind the former Karma nightclub property, with the motel’s parking lot separating the inn from the former nightclub, which itself has been torn down and is being redeveloped as a high-end mixed-use commercial and luxury residential complex.

The motel is located on a 140,000 square foot parcel that technically spans two lots.

To formally declare a property in need of redevelopment, the borough’s planning board must determine the property fits the criteria under state law following presentations of findings by licensed engineers or planners. If the board recommends the designation, the measure comes to the borough council for a vote. Once a property is declared a redevelopment area, the redevelopment agency – in this case, the council – directly determines what can be built there.

The meeting will be held Jan. 27 at 6 p.m. in the council chambers on Sherman Avenue.