The construction of the Republic Bank building in 2021 was supposed to represent the next phase of the Ninth Street corridor’s transformation into a more inviting gateway into Ocean City.
But now comes word that the contemporary-style glass building overlooking the corner of Ninth Street and West Avenue will not survive much longer following the takeover of Republic Bank by Fulton Bank. It is scheduled to close on Sept. 16.
City Council President Pete Madden, who is also the broker-owner of Goldcoast Sotheby’s International Realty in Ocean City, said he has heard that Fulton Bank plans to sell the building.
“Fulton Bank doesn’t have any interest in Ocean City,” Madden said in an interview Wednesday.
Madden believes the city should buy the property, demolish the building and develop the site into a parking lot serving the downtown business district.
“I’d like to see the city acquire it. I think it would be good to turn it into a parking lot,” he said.
Madden estimated the land value of the property at between $1.5 million and $2 million. He estimated that the bank would raise the value of the property to about $2.5 million if someone wanted to buy the building and reuse it, perhaps for commercial or office space.
“I don’t think other banks would want it,” Madden said of what he believes would be limited demand for the building itself.
Steve Trapnell, Fulton corporate communications manager, disclosed Thursday that the Ocean City bank is scheduled to close down on Sept. 16. Ocean City customers will be encouraged to visit the Fulton Bank branch five miles away in Somers Point on Route 9.
“While it’s never easy to close one of our financial centers, it’s sometimes necessary after we evaluate factors including overlapping service areas and trends in how customers conduct their banking,” Trapnell said in an email.
The upcoming closure of the Ocean City location is one of a number of bank consolidations planned by Fulton for this year.
“We are sending letters to customers who use affected financial centers, with recommendations for other nearby locations they can use. Between now and when the financial centers are scheduled to close, our Human Resources team will work with affected employees to integrate them into a new role or help in identifying current openings they can apply for within our company,” Trapnell said.
Fulton had already announced that it will close 13 of its own branches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that have been made redundant by the Republic takeover. One of the branches in New Jersey is in Northfield. 
City Council President Pete Madden would like for Ocean City to acquire the Republic Bank site and turn it into a parking lot. Fulton acquired the assets of Republic Bank after federal bank regulators seized the financially troubled Republic last April.
Vernon Hill, Republic’s former chairman, had overseen an expansion of the company, including the construction of the Ocean City bank, but was ousted by the board of directors in 2022 when he failed to make Republic profitable.
Hill chose a contemporary design wrapped in an all-glass exterior as the model for each new Republic Bank. Republic’s Ocean City building mimicked the design of other banks built by the company, including one in Somers Point on Route 9.
But the bank’s contemporary architecture drew criticism in Ocean City. Madden bluntly called the Ocean City bank an eyesore and sarcastically referred to it as Hill’s “shrine.”
“From the get-go, no one had liked that building. It’s an eyesore. It was a shrine to Vernon Hill,” Madden said.
The way it was built, the bank sits up high, overlooking the busy intersection of Ninth Street and West Avenue. It is just a block from City Hall and the Asbury Avenue retail corridor downtown.
The bank’s prominent location ensures that it is one of the first things visitors see while entering the city on the Ninth Street artery, the main gateway into town.
Republic Bank bought and then demolished the former Wiesenthal’s Auto Service and a Sunoco gas station next door at the corner of Ninth and West to make room for its new building.
The bank project continued a sweeping overhaul of the Ninth Street corridor by both private developers and the city in the past several years. Ninth Street’s status as the main entrance into town gives extra importance to any project that is part of the corridor’s makeover. 
Republic Bank overlooks the Ninth Street corridor, the main entryway into Ocean City.
Previously, the city was able to acquire two blighted former gas stations, a Getty and a BP, that once stood next to each other on Ninth Street. Working in partnership with Cape May County, the city turned the former gas station properties into a landscaped park to create a more attractive entryway into town at the foot of the Route 52 causeway bridge.
In March 2018, McMahon Insurance Agency celebrated the grand opening of a large new office building at 901 Simpson Ave., at the doorstep of the Ninth Street gateway. The following November, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach Realtors opened a new office in the McMahon building.
The real estate company Keller Williams then followed up with a new office complex at the corner of Ninth and Bay Avenue, on the site of a former Exxon gas station.
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