A bait shop and restaurant. Interconnected pathways that curve into the water and split into different levels to let people experience the ocean in different ways. And a design that extends farther into the sea.
Those are some of the key concepts the city of San Diego unveiled April 6 as part of its efforts to reimagine the iconic but crumbling Ocean Beach Pier and determine its future.
The city’s preferred design concept was presented to the public at the Liberty Station Conference Center in Point Loma during the fourth workshop in a series of community events to gather input on a long-term pier solution. A study completed in 2019 determined the aging structure was at the end of its service life. The pier has been shuttered since October last year due to storm-related damage.
Though the plan is not yet certain, community and city officials have expressed preference for replacing the nearly 58-year-old pier due to the ongoing cost of repairs and a need to modernize it.
Officials say a replacement is estimated to cost $170 million to $190 million. That’s much higher than the $60 million to $65 million estimated more than five years ago by the city’s pier consultant, Moffatt & Nichol.
The planning and engineering phase of the Ocean Beach Pier Renewal Project was backed by $8.4 million in state funding.
The city plans to pursue additional state and federal money.
“To pull this off, we’re going to need a lot of money from a lot of sources,” said Matthew Martinez, vice president of Moffatt & Nichol.
Martinez said the initial estimate reflected an “in kind” replacement of the pier.
“As we’ve gone through the evolution of the design process, the public has made it clear that they want something considerably more than that,” he said.
He added that the team would work to bring the current estimate lower.
“I think they’ll probably take away some pieces of the pier [design] to bring the cost down if need be,” he said. “We’ll have to see where that journey takes us.”
The preferred design concept offers a pier structure distinct from any other in Southern California, including the Ocean Beach Pier’s current design, according to city officials.
It is the result of more than a year of work on the project, in which the city asked San Diegans to share what the landmark means to them, what it’s missing and what sort of pier experiences are important.
The proposed design incorporates public on preferred features from three potential concepts released in September. More than 3,400 community surveys were submitted, and more than 600 people attended three previous workshops.
The potential replacement pier would maintain the long, linear experience of the current structure but add two curvy arms that extend it farther into the ocean. The new pier would be at least 2,000 feet long and about 22 feet wide along the deck. The current pier is 1,971 feet long.
The new design incorporates environmental constraints, including sea-level rise, and amenities community said they wanted, such as upgraded restrooms, fishing spaces, a surfers lounge and the return of the Walking on Water Cafe.
The design features various deck areas with shaded seating and vista points, including an expanded deck and plaza for potential retail, dining and community spaces.
Like the original, the new pier would provide access from Niagara Avenue but with improved accessibility for people with disabilities.
“We started this process with a blank slate open to everyone’s ideas and desires for a potential replacement pier, and we feel like the preferred design concept represents the community input we received,” said Tyler Becker, a city spokesman. “This state-of-the-art design holds core elements of the existing pier and pairs them with unique and innovative design features that will provide a whole new pier experience for generations to come.
“We really want to put forth a design that is true to the history and iconic significance of the original pier.”
The new design concept most closely resembles the “Braid” option that was unveiled in September, with a raised walkway that traverses above and across the main walkway of the pier.
Scott Jordan, principal architect of Civitas, a Denver-based design studio working alongside San Diego-based Roesling Nakamura Terada Architects and Long Beach-based Moffatt & Nichol, said he and his team were “somewhat surprised” by the results of the community input.
“It was a pretty bold idea including this ‘horizon walk,’ but it resonated with the community,” Jordan said. “When you look at the [survey] results and it’s overwhelmingly what people seem to really like, that was exciting to us. It showed that people were looking for something big and unique.”
Jordan said formulating the latest concept was a balancing act of sorts.
“You see that it is still reminiscent of the original pier,” he said. “We want it to resemble some of the key features. It’s a long, linear, thin pier with small thin pilings.”
Martinez said the new pier’s homage to the original structure is largely due to its historical designation.
“Any structure and improvement on a structure that is over 45 years old has to run the gauntlet” of historic-resource review, Martinez said. “The new pier needs to celebrate the historicity of the existing structure.”
The design team asked guests at the April 6 community meeting to give input on certain amenities, including retail, lighting and shade options.
Those who could not attend can find out more about the design at OBPierRenewal.com and share their opinions through an online survey open through Monday, May 6. The pier project team also will continue to visit farmers markets and other local events to garner more public input.
A final concept incorporating those comments is to be presented to the public later this year.
The project also will need to go through environmental reviews and permitting.
The city has said it hoped to start building a new pier by 2026. But Martinez said construction could begin by spring 2027 and in a perfect scenario be complete around December 2028.
The city’s contract with Moffatt & Nichol is set to expire in 2028.
“That package takes the project through 30 percent design and solidifies what’s supposed to be completed,” Martinez said. “Then a contractor will come and they’ll take it from 30 percent and go to final and construct it and guarantee the price to the city in the bargain.”
Storms in recent years have led to more frequent pier closures and heightened the renewal project’s urgency. Storms this past winter caused significant damage, knocking down one of the pier’s pilings, a portion of the pile cap and large sections of railing.
The pier will remain closed to the public until the city can stabilize recent damage. But city officials say any structural improvements will be more like a Band-Aid until the renewal project can move forward.
The city is waiting for a report from its marine structural engineer to give a better idea of the potential options for stabilizing the pier. There is no timeline for when that will be completed or when the current pier will reopen.
Jordan said a major concern with the existing pier’s design is the “dip” along the deck that culminates in the lowest point of the pier’s length. In recent storms, major infrastructure pieces at that point have been critically damaged.
“That dip was one of the areas most susceptible to wave action,” Jordan said. “We’re learning from past mistakes, raising it up, accommodating sea-level rise, accommodating future wave action and getting it up out of that flow area.
“We estimate this will cover it for the next 75 years. But none of this is an exact science.”
Another issue of concern with the current pier is a lack of protective coating around the rebar, leaving it exposed to saltwater and erosion. The pier was built in 1966, before those kinds of building techniques were common.
In the decades since, new techniques and materials to promote durability have become more widely available, Jordan said.
“We’re also exploring other newer technologies. It depends when the money gets in place, [but] we could be using a whole new construction technique,” he said.
Methods that could be used to prevent erosion could include treating the concrete with chemical agents or metals to make the concrete less porous, Martinez said.
“We’ll look at all of those available technologies and come up with the right blend to get what we look for, which is a 75- to 100-year service life,” he said.
Martinez said the biggest challenge with construction would be driving the pier’s pylons into the rock beneath the site. He said the density of the rock below the water, as well as the top layer of sand, varies.
“That process is kind of a battle,” Martinez said. “Between the … wind and the waves, it’s not a benign environment. Once we get out of the water and start building topside, it’s a tinker toy in comparison.”
A different challenge to the project came from a lawsuit filed against the city in November 2022.
The Animal Protection and Rescue League filed for a court injunction to halt the project, alleging the city did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. Environmental attorney Brian Pease, who filed the suit on APRL’s behalf, said the city never produced documents showing that environmental factors were considered in approving the project’s $8 million planning study by Moffatt & Nichol.
However, in February this year, Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil denied the group’s petition, citing a lack of substantive merits.
“The court ruled that we still needed to prepare a record based on the documents the city said should go in the record,” Pease said.
A statement issued by the city said the lawsuit had “not caused any delays in the project” and that it would “continue moving forward … as planned.”
Pease said that even if APRL prevailed in the case, the city could redo the contract and consider environmental factors.
“They should do so as an issue of public transparency, which is what CEQA is for, but it would not stop the project unless in considering those environmental factors they decided not to approve it this time, which seems unlikely,” Pease said.
