This is a newspaper article from the New York Times, Escapes, Friday, July 1, 2005 - Louise Tutelian

     Perhaps you've heard of party-hearty Wildwood, the blue-collar Jersey Shore town of prom-night, flophouse motels, dance-till-dawn nightclubs and roving packs of teenagers prowling the boardwalk. You know, Wildwood:: seedy cousin of tonier towns like Stone Harbor and Avalon and traditional rite-of-passage spot for millions of East Coast young people in search of beach days and boogie nights.

     But what about the Wildwood of Adrienne and Richard Castellano, whose townhouse, bought just two years ago for $350,000 is on the market for $650,000? (And they're likely to get it.)

     Where 65 old hotels and motels have been bulldozed in the last two years, clearing the way for 3,275 new condominiums and town houses ranging in price from $325,000 to $2 million? Where almost 1,000 properties, new and old, are at this moment on the market, with every owner trying to make a profit?

     "You can say that there is literally some kind of development on just about every single street," said Patrick Rosenello, executive director of the Wildwoods Boardwalk Special Improvement District and president of the City Council of North Wildwood. As if to confirm his words, rows of contractors' trucks were lined up one recent Saturday at Mr. D's Steaks on New Jersey Avenue, the main commercial street, while all over town, the staccato of pneumatic drills and humming of buzz saws competed with the screeching of seagulls.

     Wildwood, a beach resort that last peaked sometime around 1960, is being discovered by vacation-home buyers from the New York City area. Sold or priced out of resort towns farther north, they are making the three-hour drive to this five-mile-long barrier island just north of Cape May. Among lifelong residents and newcomers alike - and certainly among those who follow the real estate market - there is a sense that Wildwood is being transformed.

     "It's a great vacation sport for my family," said Mrs. Castellano. She and her husband take their teenage son and daughter to Wildwood from their home in Verona, NJ. "The beach is gorgeous, and we bought a boat that's being delivered this week. We love it here." Now the Castellanos are ready to trade up to a house closer to the beach.

     From the beach to the bay, old homes are being razed to make way for new construction in the three towns that make up the island, the City of Wildwood in the island's center, and the boroughs of North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest. Billboards of architectural drawings fill empty lots. In all, more than 3,000 new houses and apartments have been built since the boom began in 2000, said Michael Preston, manager of the Joint Construction Commission of the Wildwood, which issues building permits for new construction and for renovations, additions and improvements to existing buildings. "There is no sign of it slowing down at all," Mr. Preston said.

     The new housing is coming in all shapes and sizes, from one-room "condotel" units (essentially hotel rooms with kitchenettes), to town house and high-rise condominiums to single-family homes. K. Hovnanian, a development company based in Red Bank, NJ, built the Tides at Seaboard Pointe, a 96 unit condo complex in North Wildwood, last year, and has purchased an aging landfill in hope of putting 200 homes on it. Belldons Coastal Colors on the beach in Wildwood Crest is a $65 million condo complex where prices now start at $719,000.

     Douglas Jewell of Jewell Real Estate Agency in Wildwood Crest estimated that nearly half of the shoppers now looking for Wildwood vacation homes are from northern New Jersey and New York, compared with 25 percent just a couple of years ago.

     Justine and Ken LePino of Armonk, NY, bought a three bedroom condominium at Coastal Colors last year, their second purchase in Wildwood, because they needed more room and were convinced that the community was on the upswing. Mrs. LePino said she saw "more people with families now, and fewer kids with multiple piercings on the boardwalk."

     Many of the new buyers are purchasing properties as investments, hoping to offset some mortgage costs with rental income for at least part of the season. "For $325,000 in Wildwood, you can still get a basic three bedroom, two bath condominium, close to the beach but with no upgrades," Mr Jewell said. A similar property farther north on the New Jersey Shore could easily cost twice that.

     Philip Eitman, who works for a mortgage company in Essex County, NJ, completed about 100 mortgages for clients who were buying property in the Wildwood area in the past two years. Last year, he bought a three bedroom condominium. "Many of my clients were telling me about the real estate values that could be obtained," Mr Eitman said, "I went down to look and was completely blown away."

     Wildwood's beach is exceptional, up to a quarter-mile wide in some places, clean, protected and free to all comers. But there's also that boardwalk, two miles long and as honky-tonk as ever. It's still the home of henna tattoo parlors, carnival game barkers, monster truck rides, palm readers, paintball with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as targets and screamingly terrifying rides. The entire panorama is perfumed by pizza, French fries and funnel cake. Summer crowds, intense all over the island as the population climbs to 250,000 from 13,000 year round, can be daunting.

     Redevelopment may already have peaked in North Wildwood, home of many year-round residents, and Wildwood Crest, always the most sedate of the three towns, probably because no liquor is sold there. It is in the City of Wildwood, boardwalk central and the tacky home of all-you-can-eat buffets ("100 Feet of Food") and nightspots like the M.T. Bottle House, home of the Original Bud Light Beer Pong, that the main redevelopment in now taking hold, creating some odd juxtapositions. The newly rebuilt convention center sits on the boardwalk in the shadow of the Great White classic coaster at Morey's Pier, while in an empty lot across the street, front-end loaders wait for construction to start on a 25-story condominium and hotel complex.

     This is where developers predict that property appreciation will be highest, although the boarded-up stores and hoagie shops around the corner from some new homes may suggest a need for caution.

     Rich Shakarjian, a salesman for K. Hovnanian, likened the market to a baseball game. "In Wildwood Crest, it's the ninth inning," he said. "In North Wildwood, it's the fourth inning, and in Wildwood itself, it's only the second inning." When that game will end is anyone's guess; forecasts range from another year to at least five or six.

     Celia Chen, director of housing economics at Economy.com, a research company based in West Chester, PA, is less sanguine, noting that the low mortgage rates fueling the housing boom may rise and that speculators may be inflating the vacation-home market. "In places like Wildwood, the recent gain in prices has been exceptionally strong, putting it at risk for a more substantial correction," she said. "This is particularly true given what I suspect is a strong investor component in the market."

     The center of Wildwood also holds the island's architectural claim to fame, a "doo-wop district" of past-their-prime hotels, motels and restaurants that call the Jetsons to mind with their swooping curves and turquoise and fuchsia color schemes. (Despite the demolitions, the island still has 250 hotels and motels, with 8,000 rooms, said John Siciliano, executive director of the Greater Wildwoods Tourism, Improvement and Development Authority.)

     Deep within the doo-wop are harbingers of what many hope will be an upscale future. The Blue Olive, its gigantic chrome martini glass lighted in neon outside, is a plush martini bar on Atlantic Avenue that offers osso buco Milanese with saffron risotto for $29.50 and chocolate-crusted coconut cream parfait for $7.50. Donna Vassalo Schlaner and her husband, John Schlander, a graduate of the American Academy of Chefs, opened the restaurant in early May. "We had two couples from New York here who said Wildwood needs more restaurants like this," said Ms Vassallo Schlaner. "We're incredibly encouraged." A few blocks away are Juan Pablo's Margarita Bar and Restaurant, a hot spot for tropical drinks and tapas; the Pacific Grill; and the MagicBrain Cyber Cafe. Amid the T-shirt shops, Carli Quinn, the young owner of Lula, a clothing boutique on Pacific Avenue, carries Frankie B jeans starting at $120. Some streets have new sidewalks, lampposts, and street signs in the shape of rockets with brightly colored fins - more homage to doo-wop.

     Ethel Wagner who works at the Information Center on the Boardwalk, sold her home in Wildwood and moved to another part of the island. She said the buyers knocked it down and built two duplexes.

     In North Wildwood, too, many year-round residents were seduced by builders' offers for their homes and have moved inland.

     Nancy and Bill Moncrief, owners of the Candlelight Inn, a 10 room bed-and-breakfast in North Wildwood, do not criticize locals who take the money and run, but lament the loss nevertheless. "We hate to see perfectly good homes knocked down," said Mrs. Moncrief, a dish towel slung over her shoulder as she prepared for weekend guests. "I like the diversity of the houses, built in different eras. When it's all cookie cutter, you lose something."

     Anthony Melchiorre, a lifeguard and year round resident, echoed her thought. "People are tearing down the old quaint houses with widow's walks along Atlantic Avenue and it's kind of sad," he said. "It's going to be good for business, but if you lose the soul of the town, what good is that?"

     Even bayside West Wildwood, which can be reached only by a wooden bridge, has some people seeing dollar signs. Real estate agents are calling the area a sleeper for savvy buyers. Locals call it Wet Wildwood, since it floods in storms. Douglas Jewell sees the section as "essentially a gated community without the gate" because of the bridge. That's a stretch for a part of town that has clothesline and cars up on blocks.

     Mr Jewell is undaunted. Apparently operating under the principle of "If you build it, they will come," he plans to erect million dollar homes there within three years.

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