Seal Beach : State Loan to Rebuild Pier Restaurant Granted

The California Coastal Conservancy has awarded the financially strapped city a low-interest loan to rebuild its pier restaurant, destroyed by winter storms in 1983, authorities said Monday.

“We consider the pier and its facilities to be an important regional (resource),” said Marc Beyeler,program development manager for the state agency.

“And we thought the citizens of Seal Beach demonstrated more than a casual interest in their pier, in as much as they raised more than $100,000 for its rehabilitation,” Beyeler said Monday.

Battered by a severe winter, two sections of the 1,865-foot pier were torn away by pounding waves just before daybreak Jan. 27, 1983. The wooden-piling pier, first erected in 1906, was ripped in two by a hurricane in 1935 and rebuilt four years later, at a cost of $110,000.

This time around, replacement costs will exceed $2.3 million for a modest, turn-of-the-century style structure that stands three feet taller against the ravages of future storms. Seal Beach residents and visitors collected the first $140,000 for the work.

The conservancy loan, awarded last week, will cover up to $250,000 in restaurant construction costs. It is the second reimbursable grant for pier restoration from the state agency. The first, $88,000, was awarded last year. The loans are to be repaid over 10 years, at 8.86% interest.

“We were pleased, very pleased,” Assistant City Manager Daniel P. Joseph said Monday. “This is really the final step.”

A contract for a 2,679-square-foot eatery was awarded last week to Jack Morrow Construction of Seal Beach, which submitted the low bid of $181,817, Joseph said.

“Basically, it’ll be a coffee-shop type of restaurant to serve the pier goers and fishermen,” Joseph said. “We’re really hoping it will be done by the end of the summer.”