- January 31, 2026
- Greg Fitzgerald
Once again, an iconic waterfront Asbury Park building is under threat of destruction by developers. The Casino breezeway, at the southern end of the city’s oceanfront, has been marked as an “unsafe structure” by owner and developer Madison Marquette, which has applied for a demolition permit.
Madison Marquette entered into a redevelopment agreement with the city in 2010 to rebuild Asbury Park’s waterfront, particularly the historic structures. The results of the historic preservation part of this agreement have been decidedly underwhelming, with buildings like the Casino and Convention Hall continuing to decay over the past fifteen years, in this case bringing the breezeway into the throes of demolition by neglect.
The notice was stickered on the building’s carousel section with a posted date of January 23, 2026. The sticker declares the unsafe structure as “700 Ocean Avenue,” which is an address that encompasses the breezeway and carousel components of the Casino, as well as the Steam Plant next door. The notice was first reported by Instagram account thisweekinasbury. Since then, Madison Marquette has applied for a demolition permit from the City of Asbury Park explicitly for the breezeway.
The city has swiftly and forcefully opposed the demolition permit, and the law firm that serves as Redevelopment Counsel for the Asbury Park Waterfront Redevelopment Area issued a statement in opposition.
“Madison Marquette has once again demonstrated its shocking disregard for the integrity of the iconic Asbury Park Boardwalk treasures that it has owned since 2010. The City is deeply disappointed in this latest illustration of a pattern of behavior that is disrespectful to the historic heritage of Asbury Park. Madison Marquette, through its subsidiary Madison Asbury Retail, LLC, has repeatedly breached the commitments it made when it entered into Subsequent Developer Agreement which it negotiated over 15 years ago with previous City officials to develop, finance, construct, operate, repair, and maintain, various sites of historic importance along the Boardwalk.”
The City has denied the demolition permit, pending a report ordered by the legal statement by “a certified structural engineer as to the option to conduct repairs to assure public safety, rather than demolition of the building.”
The City is somewhat limited in the legal actions they can take against Madison Marquette, due to the language of the 2010 Subsequent Developer Agreement. The City has issued Notices of Default against Madison Marquette in the past, which the developers have in turn ignored.
The Breezeway has in recent years been the most accessible and tangible component of the Casino, creating a pathway between the Asbury Park and Ocean Grove boardwalks that was often filled with displays and conceptual art by local artists. That pathway was closed in May 2023 due to concerns about the structural steel trusses that hold up the roof, which were deteriorating in the seaside air. A hastily built “Oceanside Passage” was created on the eastern outside of the breezeway to reconnect the two towns, but the building itself has been boarded up and inaccessible for almost three years. (The Oceanside Passage was itself shut down on January 21st, ahead of the other actions at the site, though that was at the time justified by the hazardous weather conditions of last week’s snowstorm.)
The glass walls that once made the space a light-filled atrium are long gone, turning it into an open-air passage, with the structural steel beams directly exposed to the sea air. Still, it retains many original features to the 1929 structure, including the columns that once held up the glass curtain walls, and the western wall of the structure, which retains artistic details and flourishes. The eastern wall is a plain replacement installed after the building’s eastern section was demolished in 2006.
The Casino was built in 1929, replacing an earlier wooden structure that burned, and was designed by the New York firm of Warren and Wetmore, which also designed Convention Hall along the waterfront to the north. The amusements closed at the end of the 1990 season, and the building has had a variety of low-impact uses in the time since, including a flea market, skate park, and art gallery.
There was some discussion of using the breezeway and carousel structure as an anchor for a new waterfront arena that could serve as a larger home for the Stone Pony, the celebrated music venue made famous by Bruce Springsteen; there has been no action on this plan since a rendering was released in 2024.
Local residents showed up with passion at the Asbury Park City Council meeting on January 28, 2026, but with the City already tied up in legal action with Madison Marquette, the Council was unable to say much. The eyes of the New Jersey preservation community are now on Madison Marquette, as they either comply with the legal requirement to undergo structural review, or continue to demolish the historic fabric of Asbury Park.
