Living in The Crossings
The Crossings sits at 3408-30 Haven Avenue in Ocean City, built in 1979, and it occupies a position no other building on this island does: it is the way in. The homes here are efficiencies and one-bedrooms, compact by any measure, and they trade at a level that simply does not exist elsewhere in town. For a buyer who wants an address in Ocean City rather than a house in Ocean City — a place to land on weekends, a first foothold, a small investment that carries itself — this is where that starts.
The one structural fact that sets The Crossings apart from every other rental building in town is choice. You can rent on your own, hand it to the on-site front desk management service, or not rent at all. The condo-hotels on the boardwalk require participation in their programs and prohibit outside rentals; here, nothing is mandatory. Owners have skipped entire seasons and simply used the place themselves. That flexibility is worth understanding, because it means the same unit can be an income property one year and a private getaway the next without anyone's permission.
Inside, the homes are consistent and sold furnished and equipped — a queen bed, a queen sleeper sofa, a kitchen area with a full-size refrigerator, and a full bathroom. The variation to shop is position rather than layout. End units run measurably larger than interior ones. Pool-side units open onto the pool and the common area, so you sit at your own door watching the water rather than looking at a corridor. Many have been renovated unit by unit over the years, so condition ranges widely across the building — that spread is the real opportunity here for anyone willing to look at something that needs work.
Shared amenities are more than the size of the units would suggest: a heated pool, a game room, a community room, on-site laundry, a storage room, an elevator, and on-site management. Parking is off-street, with a covered carport area holding two large bike racks — and on this island, bikes are transportation rather than recreation. The 34th Street beach is two to three blocks away, with shopping, restaurants, basketball and tennis courts and a playground close by, and the 34th Street bridge right there when you want to be off the island.
If The Crossings is where you are starting and you want to see what the next step up looks like, compare against Bluewater and Ocean Reef on the same end of the island, or work through every building at once on the Ocean City condos page. For the buildings that run mandatory front-desk rental programs, the four to look at are Watson's Regency, The Flanders, Biscayne Suites and Beach Club Suites.
