Art League building near completion

The Art League of Ocean City used to meet in a shoebox of a building at 94th Street, a former pool house that operated as a de facto one-room schoolhouse for art classes.

The old building, open since 1984, had problems with mildew and a leaky roof, said Executive Director Rina Thaler. Ocean City replaced the roof a few years ago, but inadvertently cut off the exhaust pipe on the heating system. When the town replaced the heat pump, it realized that carbon monoxide had been piped into the ceiling as a result, she said.

"Lucky for us, the building leaks like a sieve, and we weren't all killed," Thaler ...