O’Maddy’s may soon have an upper deck.
Cathy Salustri
Is O’Maddy’s getting a new look?
Its owners have the go-ahead from the City of Gulfport for exactly that.
The Gulfport Community Redevelopment Agency, which consists of members of the City Council, voted July 7 to approve a conditional use and special permit through a site plan for additional outdoor seating on a proposed second-floor addition to the existing restaurant. The applicant must apply within one year for the appropriate building permit for the addition, or else the previous approval will expire.
The restaurant plans 70 seats for the upstairs area, City Manager Jim O’Reilly said.
O’Maddy’s owner Joe Guenther addressed the CRA and said that a solid wall will be built on the west side, next to the adjacent restaurant property (currently Hurricane Eddie’s) and also along the back side. The sides facing 54th Street and Shore Boulevard South, toward the water, will be open with a railing. O’Maddy’s will occasionally have live music upstairs, Guenther said, but only acoustic music, not amplified.
O’Maddy’s began as a bar on Shore Boulevard and acquired the restaurant next door, formerly the Pierhouse Grill and Pepper Company, after a 2005 fire shuttered the eatery. A second-story addition was first proposed in 1998 but never acted upon. The two properties were unified in 2006 to connect the restaurant and bar.
The owners approached the City again in 2014 with plans to build a second story and expand the restaurant with outdoor seating. The City approved a variance and conditional use along with the site plan, but they also expired when O’Maddy’s took no further action. That meant the application process would be started a third time to reach the current point in the process.
A variance application to reduce the required 16 off-street parking spaces to zero was approved in July 2021.
Now, O’Maddy’s must apply for a permit.
“To date,” Michael Taylor, Principal Planner for the City of Gulfport, “the City has not received a building permit application, including building plans, for the proposed second story addition.”
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