[caption id="attachment_220089" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] The Atlantic Oceanside Beach Resort in Dewey was sold to a Washington D.C. firm late last month. | PHOTO COURTESY OF DISTRICT LODGING CAPITAL[/caption] DEWEY BEACH — The Atlantic Oceanside Beach Resort in Dewey, a hotel almost as old as the beach town itself, has been sold to an upstart real estate investment firm with Delaware connections. District Lodging Capital (DLC), co-founded in 2020 and led by David Duber, acquired the 61-room hotel for $7 million on Jan. 20, according to county land records. That translates to a purchase price $114,754 per room. Atlantic Oceanside opened in 1983, two years after Dewey Beach incorporated as a town. It was owned by Rob Marshall, the son of one of the hotel’s original partners. Marshall did not immediately respond to Delaware Business Times’ request for comment. The three-story hotel is yards away from the beach and has an outdoor swimming pool, outdoor showers, a fitness room and the Dawn Patrol Cafe, which offers coffee drinks and assorted snacks. [caption id="attachment_220090" align="alignleft" width="300"] The 61-room Atlantic Oceanside Beach Resort has a pool and a deck and is just yards away from the beach. | PHOTO COURTSEY OF DISTRICT LODGING CAPITAL[/caption] The Atlantic Oceanside was renovated in 1997 and more recently in 2016. The latest renovation tripled the lobby space, revamped the second floor and added a gazebo. Duber has spent years working at other real estate development firms, including Wilmington’s Buccini/Pollin Group (BPG), until he founded DLC in D.C. with a strategy of targeting “select service and extended-stay hotels in secondary and tertiary markets.” But Duber views this sale between two families that spent their summers at the Delaware beaches. “My family has been coming to Henlopen Acres for a while, including Thanksgivings at the beach. I remember when I was a kid, there were no restaurants open in the winter, and now what you see with the retirement community booming and more people coming to work remotely in more scenic locations,” Duber told DBT. “The Delaware beach towns are becoming a 365-day market, no doubt.” Duber is the son of Marc Duber, chief operating officer of The Bernstein Companies, a major Washington, D.C.-area developer of hotels and multi-family projects. The Bernstein Companies acquired the Sand Palace hotel — right next door to the Atlantic Oceanside — back in 2012 and renovated it and rebranded it as Beach House Dewey a year later. Duber said that about a year and a half ago while visiting family, he approached Marshall and said he was willing to buy the Atlantic Oceanside when he was ready to sell. There are no immediate plans to renovate the Atlantic Oceanside, and Duber plans to keep it as is for the summer 2022 season. In the long-term, he envisions branding the two hotels under the same umbrella and exploring new ideas for the space. “It’s a beautiful place with great bones, and we truly do want to hold onto the themes of what the Atlantic Oceanside does already,” Duber said. “But there are some ideas we’re exploring. For example, there’s not a lot of breakfast options in Dewey - maybe we bring in something to serve that market.” This is the second DLC acquisition in Delaware, as the company acquired the 136-room Hampton Inn in Christiana from BPG for more than $16.9 million last year.