Developer Keith Groff said the lighthouse row project will have market-rate housing at numerous price points.

WAYNE PARRY, STAFF WRITER

ATLANTIC CITY — The developer building about 30 new homes across from the Absecon Lighthouse says he aims to provide “what everyone wants back” in Atlantic City.

During a media tour Wednesday of the Lighthouse Row development in the city’s Inlet neighborhood, developer Keith Groff said the project, currently in the second of what will be at least three phases, will have market-rate housing at numerous price points.

The second phase will sell for $850,000 to $1.105 million, he said.

“We’re going to bring back what used to be here, that everyone wants back,” Groff said.

His project is creating new housing on vacant land near the ocean that the city has long sought to repopulate, with vibrant, walkable neighborhoods on land that once symbolized blight.

“We all want rateables, more people in the neighborhood,” Groff said. “It feels safe, with more people walking around.”

The Lighthouse Row project is just one of many underway in Atlantic City as the pace of building and investment accelerates.

From multibillion-dollar residential and entertainment projects to single-family homes, Atlantic City is experiencing a spate of development that, for the first time in decades, has drawn some of the state’s largest builders to the seaside resort, including K. Hovnanian and the Kushner Companies.

Builders, officials, and legal experts agree on several reasons for the increased interest in Atlantic City:

• Comparatively cheap land, and lots of it

• Free beaches and an established casino industry

• Intensive state oversight and support, with development incentives, coupled with a business-friendly city administration

• Continuation of a trend that started with the COVID-19 pandemic of remote work away from big cities

By Dana Hedgpet, The Washington Post

A new report on the Chesapeake Bay’s signature blue crab has documented a steep, long-term decline in the crustacean’s population, raising concerns among environmental groups about the future of one of the region’s most important species.

Scientists aren’t sure exactly what’s behind the drop. The total number of blue crabs can fluctuate sharply, with population estimates varying by tens of millions — or even hundreds of millions — within just a few years. But experts said they’re concerned by what they’re seeing.

“It’s clear the bay’s most iconic species is under immense stress,” according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which was not involved in the assessment but whose scientists closely monitor its results.

There are numerous ways to gauge crab “abundance,” the term researchers use to denote the overall population or that of different subgroups, such as juveniles. Michael Wilberg, the assessment’s lead author, cited one overarching finding: In 2011, the bay had about 1.3 billion crabs. By 2023, that dropped to about 825 million, he said.

Habitat loss, especially the reduction of underwater grasses that shelter young crabs, may be playing a role, experts said. Changes in currents, winds and storms, pollution and runoff, and low-oxygen “dead zones” caused by algae blooms may also contribute, experts said.

“They’re a short-lived species and the biggest thing we’re seeing is a decline in the number of young crabs entering the population,” said Chris Moore, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Virginia executive director. “That long-term trend of fewer young ones is very concerning.”

Healthy blue crabs are vital to the bay’s ecosystem. They eat worms, clams, and smaller crabs, and are prey for fish, great blue herons, and sea turtles. Blue crabs also generate $50 million to $80 million annually for the commercial crabbing industries of Maryland and Virginia, experts said.