No Band-Aid for the Ocean Beach Pier: City won’t reopen crumbling icon before full renewal project

SAN DIEGO —  It appears to be the end of an era for a crumbling Ocean Beach icon. The city’s 58-year-old pier won’t reopen, after an engineer’s report found that stabilizing recent damage would be too costly.

Instead, the city will keep moving forward with efforts to reimagine the pier’s future in the longer term and hopefully replace it.

“Due to the overall cost, timeline and feasibility of [stabilization] options, the city has decided to leave the pier as is,” city officials said in a news release Friday.

The Ocean Beach Pier was closed in October in anticipation of winter storms, but unlike in previous years, the beloved landmark did not reopen in the spring after a season battered by high surf.

City staff sped up a long-planned assessment of the pier and posted new signs in the area, reiterating warnings to beachgoers and surfers to keep their distance — at least 75 feet.

The engineer’s report confirmed what many had seen: A piling on the south side of the aging structure — as well as a portion of the pile cap and large sections of its railing — had been wiped away by historic swells.

The city received the final memo Thursday from consultants Moffatt & Nichol, which estimated the cost to stabilize the missing pile and reinforce another corroded pile cap on the north side of the pier would be about $550,000.

San Diego has already spent $1.7 million on temporary fixes to the pier in the last five years, not including staff time and other resources.

The pier’s indefinite closure might not come as a surprise to most.

City officials have been working for over a year on a renewal project for the iconic landmark, after a 2018 study determined it was at the end of its service life. The plan is not yet certain, but both the community and the city prefer to replace the pier rather than undertake major repairs.

Worsening winter storms and more frequent closures have heightened the project’s urgency. The city unveiled its preferred design concept for a new pier in April, and its project team is working to garner more public input.

City officials had previously said any structural improvements would be more like a Band-Aid until the renewal project can move forward. They now say they will skip the Band-Aid and focus on the more long-term solution of replacing the pier altogether.

The new engineer’s report echoed those sentiments, recommending that the pier remain closed unless the lost pile can be replaced and full deck support reestablished.

“Enacting this repair is a costly proposition and may not have sufficient merit in light of the proposed pier demolition,” the report states.

Although the report indicates that future storms could cause more damage — even more severe than last winter’s — any falling debris is expected to land near the pier on the ocean floor due to the density of the concrete pieces.

Because the failed sections are so far from shore, the report found there is no threat to public safety if the pier remains closed and the public remains at least 75 feet away.

The areas of greatest concern — under the pier on dry land or over relatively shallow water, due to the difficulty restricting public access — are in good condition because the deck components are up and out of the splash zone, the report added.

The city hopes to present an updated final design concept for a replacement pier this fall at another community workshop. But the project still needs to go through environmental reviews and permitting before construction could start.

Demolition and construction will take place concurrently, likely starting where the pier connects to land, according to city officials.

The new pier will be built in about the same footprint as the existing pier but will have a higher deck elevation to minimize the potential for wave damage and account for future sea-level rise.

A replacement is estimated to cost $170 million to $190 million. The city plans to pursue a combination of federal and state grants to help fund it.

Alvarenga writes for the San Diego-Union Tribune.