The lot where LaCosta Lounge once drew crowds to Sea Isle City has sat empty since the bar was torn down in October 2024, but a new push to redevelop the corner at John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Landis Avenue is now underway. Sea Isle City Council has authorized special legal counsel to help steer the property toward a possible overhaul, and the developers behind it are pitching a boutique hotel with suites, residences, a bakery and a second-floor pool.
Council Hires Outside Counsel for Redevelopment Push
At its October 27 meeting, the council voted to retain Maley Givens, a Collingswood law firm, as special redevelopment counsel for the former LaCosta site, according to Sea Isle City's own meeting record. The resolution authorized a professional services contract with the firm to assist with the redevelopment process. The same city material says it received a request from the property owner to consider designating the site an area in need of redevelopment, though it stops short of confirming that status has actually been granted.
As of publication, that redevelopment designation has not been approved. The city's action also does not guarantee that whatever hotel proposal eventually comes forward will be built as currently described.
A Revived Boutique Hotel Plan Takes Shape
The project moving forward again is a new version of The Ludlam, proposed through an entity called 42nd Place LLC by Christopher Glancey and Bob Morris, as reported by OCNJ Daily. The latest version calls for 26 hotel suites, 20 residential units, a restaurant, a bar, a small bakery and a swimming pool on the second floor, according to the outlet's report. The property itself spans about 1.2 acres at the busy JFK Boulevard and Landis Avenue intersection, where the former LaCosta Lounge and Ludlam buildings stood until their October 2024 demolition left the corner vacant.
Glancey told the outlet he estimates it will take roughly 18 to 24 months to negotiate a development agreement with the city for the hotel. In the meantime, the plan is to build an outdoor bar on the property starting in 2027 while that longer process plays out, per the same report.
Affordable Housing Hurdle Sent Owners Back to the Drawing Board
The redevelopment designation request followed a setback: the owners' hotel plans did not meet Sea Isle City's affordable-housing requirements, OCNJ Daily reports. That means the plans will have to be revised to satisfy those requirements before the project can move ahead, and pursuing redevelopment status is seen as a possible new path for a project that had otherwise stalled.
Glancey and Morris are familiar faces at this address. The pair bought the original LaCosta Lounge in 2018 for $7.3 million, continuing to operate it under a lease until it closed for good in 2021, the outlet notes. This is not their first attempt to transform the corner, either — a 2022 version of The Ludlam proposal cleared Sea Isle City's planning board with unanimous approval of preliminary and final site plans and the variances needed for the project, according to Sea Isle News. That earlier design called for a 58-room hotel with two restaurants, an indoor-outdoor bar, a rooftop bar and a swimming pool, with completion originally anticipated by the summer of 2023 — a timeline that obviously did not hold.
What Comes Next
For now, the once-bustling LaCosta corner remains an empty lot while the redevelopment question works its way through city hall. OCNJ Daily reported on the latest developments before NJ.com covered the effort. The path to any new construction still runs through a redevelopment designation that has not been finalized, an affordable-housing fix that has not been completed, and a development agreement that, by the developers' own estimate, could take up to two years to hammer out.
