Pines Beach Club Repairs Undecided

BERLIN – Though the board of directors has yet to make a decision, management has recommended repairing rather than replacing the bathrooms at the Ocean Pines Beach Club.

At a work session Monday, Brett Hill, interim general manager for the Ocean Pines Association, said he received one renovation bid and two replacement bids for the bathrooms. He says he’s not confident in any of them and instead recommends basic repairs at the bathrooms.

“All three have a large potential for change orders,” he said. “We didn’t give them a good basis to work from.”

Hill told the board that addressing the deferred maintenance issues at the bathrooms and making other basic improvements would address residents’ concerns with the facilities. He said neither a large scale renovation nor a full replacement would allow the bathrooms to be usable by Memorial Day when the club opened.

“As proposed right now, it’s not going to be successful for our goal,” he said.

Hill said the association could do basic improvements, such as installing new tile, pretty easily. He said an “in place” renovation would prevent Pandora’s Box from being opened. He said any work that went into the building’s mechanical systems was liable to add to the time and cost of the project.

“Let’s take what we have and make it nice,” he said.

Board member Pat Supik said it would take a good bit of work to make the community happy. The bathrooms have long been a source of complaint among residents.

“They’ve got to look better than they are,” Supik said.

Hill said cosmetic improvements would cost roughly $200,000 while a full renovation or replacement would be near $1 million.

Board member Slobodan Trendic said that because the beach club provided many people with their first impression of Ocean Pines, he wanted to make sure the project was handled correctly. He said he also didn’t want to see a situation like that at the old Ocean Pines Yacht Club.

“We spent a million dollars renovating it and then tore it down,” he said.

Hill replied that a recent engineering report revealed that the beach club was structurally sound and just in need of maintenance.

“There’s a laundry list of things we need to do,” he said. “But we have reports from experts saying that if we repair x, y and z the building is sound.”

Board members asked Hill to continue looking into options for the bathrooms.

“We really don’t have enough information to decide,” Trendic said.

About The Author: Charlene Sharpe

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Charlene Sharpe has been with The Dispatch since 2014. A graduate of Stephen Decatur High School and the University of Richmond, she spent seven years with the Delmarva Media Group before joining the team at The Dispatch.