OCEAN CITY — Ocean City will cut the ribbon on its sparkling new public works facility along St. Louis Avenue at 2nd Street next week, but a tour this week provided a glimpse of its capabilities before that official ceremony.
Throughout the summer, the vast facility, called for now Public Works South, steadily grew from an old vacant lot to a modern facility. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will officially open the building next week, but a tour this week revealed its vast capabilities.
Ocean City acquired the property in 2017 for around $2 million for the purpose of developing a public works complex in the downtown area. The resort’s existing downtown public works yard known as Whiteside had outlived its usefulness and practicality, necessitating the development of the new facility, which comes in at just over 19,000 square feet with a price tag of about $3.8 million.
The new facility will house the Boardwalk tram operation and each of the town’s eight trams will exit the building every morning during the season and return at night. In addition, the facility will also house the public works department’s beach cleaning operation and everything that entails. Public Works Director Hal Adkins this week provided a tour of the new facility in advance of next week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“It’s a multi-use building with different sections for the different functions we need from it,” he said. “Everything about it is designed and built with the greatest efficiency for all of our operations in the downtown area.”
The aesthetically pleasing facility blends right into the downtown landscape, but inside is a complex maze of huge equipment bays, workshops, storage areas and offices. One of the primary uses of the new facility is housing the Boardwalk tram operation and the huge bay doors on either side of the structure will allow the trams to quickly and efficiently get out on the Boardwalk each day during the summer.
“This facility will house all eight trams and possibly a ninth if it is added,” said Adkins. “In the past, we would have to disconnect the passenger cars from the jeeps at the end of the day and reconnect them at the start of the next day. In this facility, all of them will be stored intact and ready to roll out for the next shift.”
Adkins said the trams will enter the facility through the large bay doors that face 2nd Street at the end of their shifts. They will then exit the large bay doors facing 3rd Street and travel east on 3rd Street, crossing Philadelphia Avenue first and then Baltimore Avenue at the signalized intersection before moving onto the Boardwalk at the ramp on 3rd Street.
In recent years, resort officials have pressed the State Highway Administration (SHA) to add a traffic signal at 3rd Street and Philadelphia Avenue, but SHA’s traffic studies have found a signal at the intersection is not warranted. However, with the trams soon to be housed and operated out of the new facility at 2nd Street, Adkins said he hoped SHA would reconsider.
“I had to figure out how to safely get the trams across Philadelphia Avenue at 3rd Street to get up to the Boardwalk,” he said. “In the short term, we could manually stop traffic in the morning to let the trams cross Philadelphia Avenue, but we really feel this facility is going to drive the need for a signal at 3rd Street.”
In a perfect world, the trams would enter the Boardwalk at the ramp at 3rd Street to start the shifts and leave the Boardwalk at 2nd Street at the end of the day to return to the public works facility along St. Louis Avenue. Currently, the Boardwalk is elevated at 2nd Street, but there have been cursory discussions about adding a ramp there to facilitate the tram operation. Otherwise, the trams would have to take a roundabout route to get back to the St. Louis Avenue facility.
Not all of the eight trams start the day and end the day at the same times. Instead, they are deployed throughout the day as dictated by demand. Of course, on a Saturday night in the peak of summer, for example, all eight trams are operating on the Boardwalk at the same time, but they are pulled back during the course of the night as demand wanes. In other words, there would not be a parade of trams leaving the 2nd Street facility in the morning, followed by a parade of trams returning at the end of the day.
The Boardwalk tram operation is only one element of the new multi-use facility at 2nd Street. The facility will also house the public works department’s beach and Boardwalk cleaning operations. Large bay doors facing north will allow the massive beach cleaning equipment to exit and enter each day with ease and be stored inside and out of the elements.
“This large area will house all of our beach tractors, the sand sanitizers and all of the heavy equipment we use to keep the beach clean at night,” he said. “It will help create an easier operation to keep the beach clean each and every day. Even the mini-pick-up that goes around and collects the trash cans on the Boardwalk will be housed here.”
The 2nd Street facility also includes offices for the tram supervisors and beach cleaning supervisors to coordinate the operations. The facility also includes large storage areas for cleaning supplies, toilet paper and paper towels for the Boardwalk comfort stations, trash can liners and everything else needed to keep the beach and Boardwalk squeaky clean.
“Everything we need to keep that beach and Boardwalk clean every day will be housed and stored here,” he said. “It really will be a one-stop operation. As it stands now, a lot of that stuff is stored in different areas around town.”
The 2nd Street facility also includes vast workshop to keep the trams, the beach cleaning equipment operational.
“We can work on all of that stuff right here where it is housed,” he said. “If something breaks down or needs maintenance, we’ll be able to fix it right here and get it back out there as quickly as possible. Everything is designed to keep us up and running as efficiently as possible.”
