Carolina Beach's Boardwalk Just Changed Hands. Here's What That Actually Changes This Off-Season.
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
"It's been like a giant yard sale, but it's been fun," Alan Nelson of Harmony Hospitality told WECT on Saturday, as a crowd bid on bar mats and patio signs during the SeaWitch Tiki Bar's last day at 227 Carolina Beach Ave. N. The bar opened in 1995 and closed on Oct. 3, 2026. Nine days before that, on Sept. 24, the Town of Carolina Beach closed on its $12 million purchase of nine properties at the boardwalk entrance.
Both deals point toward a different downtown, and both have timelines that run past this winter. Through at least September 2028, the boardwalk core is publicly owned and privately parked. Its best-known music deck is gone until 2027 at the earliest. The park the town wants to build there is still an open question that will be answered with public input. This off-season is a holding pattern, and the parts still undecided are the ones locals can influence.
The SeaWitch redevelopment has been in the works for years. Harmony Hospitality bought the SeaWitch in January 2024 for $2.6 million and assembled neighboring parcels on Carolina Beach Avenue North. The project started as a larger Embassy Suites proposal and shrank after community meetings. It ended up as a 140-room SpringHill Suites about 67 feet tall, which needed conditional zoning to exceed the 50-foot height limit in the Central Business District. Across the street, plans call for a new oceanfront SeaWitch with an event space and ballroom. That building will sit about 39 feet tall, raised over parking and connected to the hotel by a skybridge. The planning board approved the conditional zoning unanimously on Oct. 9, 2025, and Town Council approved it after that.
The town's purchase is a separate deal. It came out of a settlement with Carolina Beach Land Holdings LLC over a sidewalk easement. The asking price started at $15 million and was negotiated down to $12 million, against an appraisal of $3.45 million for all nine parcels. A $10 million bank loan approved by the Local Government Commission on Sept. 1 covers most of the cost. The rest comes from the town's fund balance and room occupancy tax reserves.
According to the town's April notice, these are the nine parcels:
The town describes the land as the area around the boardwalk's event stage, historically used for amusements and parking. Some familiar storefronts nearby, such as The Silver Dollar at 3 Cape Fear Blvd. and Sand Dollar Sports Bar at 5 Cape Fear Blvd., do not appear on that list.
Under the leaseback, the price drop shows up as parking. Carolina Beach Land Holdings pays the town $1,000 a month to keep renting four of the nine parcels, where it runs private parking lots, until the lease ends in September 2028. Council member Rouse told Port City Daily that the owners said they made "well over" $1 million a year in parking revenue from the lots near the boardwalk. That was the basis for taking $3 million off the price.
In practice, the two parking systems downtown keep operating side by side for another two years:
| Leaseback lots | Town program, run by Pivot | |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates | Carolina Beach Land Holdings | Pivot, for the town |
| Pricing as of Sept. 2026 | Dynamic. One lot runs around $11 an hour | $6 an hour, $25 a day, flat |
| How long | Through September 2028 | Ongoing |
The town's own off-season schedule matters too. The visitors bureau's parking guide, dated February 2025, listed paid enforcement in public lots through Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., then 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. from November through December, with free parking from Jan. 1 through Feb. 28. That guide is from 2025, so check the 2026 hours with the town's parking office before planning around them. The leaseback lots set their own prices. Town Manager Bruce Oakley said the town has not calculated what it could earn from those lots in a day.
On Sept. 29, the New Hanover Community Endowment announced a provisional $3.5 million grant for what it calls the Carolina Beach Coastal Park and Event Stage. The town says it will use the money to start planning and gather public input. Five of the nine parcels are slated for the park. Most of the grant goes toward the roughly $6 million it will cost to design and build the park. Counting the land, public bathrooms and construction, the full project is estimated at more than $20 million.
Mayor Lynn Barbee has been careful to say that nothing is final. His description of the goal is plain:
"We would like to have a place for kids down there so that families, when they're hanging out and listening to music, their kids can go play, whether that's a playground or a splash pad."
He has also said the park is not meant to earn back its cost. "That's not how public assets work. It's an amenity for the public," he told Port City Daily.
Three questions are still open:
Laid out by date, the gap between public ownership and a finished park looks like this:
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| Sept. 24, 2026 | Town closes on the nine parcels |
| Oct. 3, 2026 | SeaWitch Tiki Bar closes |
| Mid-summer 2027 | Hoped-for opening of the new SeaWitch, not a confirmed date |
| September 2028 | Parking leaseback on four parcels ends |
| To be determined | Park design and construction |
The SeaWitch's owners have said the new version will have "the same flair, including the tuna nachos," and they hope to open it by the middle of next summer. Earlier schedules shifted along the way. In October 2025, Harmony Hospitality projected that pavilion construction would start in February and hotel construction would follow at the end of summer 2026. A 2025 report said the original bar would stay open during construction, but it closed first. Until the new building opens, the island has no SeaWitch at all, including the deck that carried the "Record Weekend" beach-music mural by artist Sharon Dowell.
For the rest of this year, most of the island's public gatherings are scheduled away from the boardwalk stage. Several are at Carolina Beach Lake Park:
Good Hops Brewing at 811 Harper Avenue advertises patio trivia every Wednesday evening. Organizers post dates on rolling event pages, so check each one shortly before you go.
Before the SeaWitch closed, Council member Rouse said of the boardwalk entrance, "That is going to be the center of activity. Has been and probably will be for generations." The town's next step is the public input process, and the Sept. 29 grant notice is the clearest signal so far that it is coming.
If you own near the boardwalk and want to know how the SeaWitch hotel project and the planned boardwalk park could affect your property over the next few years, Maxx Jackson can go through the timeline with you, parcel by parcel. Schedule a Consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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