A while back we reported that The Ocean Holiday Motel was sold for $4.55 million back in July.
At that time we didn’t have an idea what was going to happen to it. It turns out Icona purchased the motel. For those who don’t know Icona, they operate three resorts at the Jersey shore including, Icona Avalon, Icona Cape May and Icona Diamond Beach.
Recently they have been in the news because they purchased the old Beach Theater in Cape May and announced plans to build a new resort there. You can read about that by clicking the link below.
Now with the sale of the Ocean Holiday Motel, it is a happy but sad kind of situation. The good news is that the building is not being torn down nor is it going condo. The bad news is that it is getting a full make over including a dropping of it’s Doowop theme and a new name.
It will no longer be called the Ocean Holiday but rather “Mahalo” or “mä” to be short. According to an interview in Business Journal, CEO of Icona Resorts, Eustace Mita, said that they “are developing a hospitality brand called Mahalo, which Mita said will be more along the lines of, say, a Marriott Courtyard.”
We are told that the brand is to give the feeling of “Aloha spirit of warmth, welcome & love.” They envision the exteriors being white with blue uplighting and lots of greenery.
The Wildwood Mahalo will be the first of it’s brand with a second to come to Cape May once the new project at the Beach Theater is completed.
According to the building application the renovations include the addition of a 6th floor (containing 14 new hotel units), the addition of 5 floors of 13 hotel rooms along Ocean Avenue, the renovation/widening of all exterior balconies, the expansion of an existing 2nd floor sun deck to include a new pool area, the demolition of the existing surface pool to accommodate more parking, and the construction of a new lobby, on the premises located at 6501 Ocean Avenue.
Being that we are a history channel and we like to document history, we should do one final tour of the building before work went underway. You can check out the video below.
It will no longer be called the Ocean Holiday but rather “Mahalo” or “mä” to be short. According to an interview in Business Journal, CEO of Icona Resorts, Eustace Mita, said that they “are developing a hospitality brand called Mahalo, which Mita said will be more along the lines of, say, a Marriott Courtyard.”