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Despite the ferocity of Hurricane Sandy, the restaurants and businesses on the Asbury Park boardwalk can reopen next month — depending on the availability of replacement parts to fix electric systems damaged by the storm.

That’s the assessment of Gary Mottola, president of investments for Madison Marquette, the boardwalk redeveloper.

“All in all, we fared well,” Mottola said. “And, of course, we’re going to come back stronger than ever.”

The pavilions housing the largest boardwalk restaurants — Stella Marina, Cubacan, Langosta Lounge and McLoone’s Asbury Grille — did not sustain serious structural damage, he said.

“The buildings are really well built,” said Mottola. “There was not serious structural damage.”

The biggest damage was to the electric systems in the basements of the buildings which were flooded with seawater, Mottola said. The major factor delaying a reopening of the restaurants is the availability of the electric parts to do the repairs.

If those parts were available today, the buildings could be reopened in less than four weeks, Mottola said.

“Normally it takes a week [to get the electrical parts],” he said. “But now there’s a huge demand for all the electric.”

The hope is that the electrical parts can be available within four weeks, Mottola said. If that happens, a reopening before Christmas for the restaurants is likely, as all of them are currently doing the other clean-up work necessary to reopen, he said.

He noted, however, that any delays beyond that for the replacement parts will delay the reopenings. On the other hand, a quick delivery could accelerate the timetable.

Replacement storefront windows also have to be installed, Mottola said. The windows performed well during the storm, holding their own against the water and the hurricane-force winds — but timbers that came loose from the boardwalk smashed through some of them, he said.

The waterfront entertainment venues, such as Convention Hall and the Stone Pony, did not sustain serious damage and will be able to reopen shortly, according to Mottola.

In the end, it was the boardwalk that protected the pavilions and the businesses. Mottola noted that the storm surge combined with the high tide made the ocean level rise as much as 15 feet, yet the water in the pavilions were no more than a foot or so, and inches in some places.

“The boardwalk served as a seawall,” Mottola said. “There was a foot of water in Stella Marina, and our office had several inches.”

Mottola’s assessment corresponds to what Sun staff observed on the boardwalk in a report filed on Wednesday — the first full day after the storm had passed. The Sun reported that construction crews were already on the scene securing the pavilions [as shown in photo at top], and the buildings appeared intact without the widespread destruction suffered in other locations.

Click here for a link to a photo album on the Asbury Park Sun’s facebook page of the boardwalk the day after Hurricane Sandy. Click here for our report at that time.

 

 

 

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