U.S. Unit Yields to Pier Pressure : Preservation: It may be historic, but Huntington Beach has gotten federal approval to raze the remnants of the old pier and build a new one.

To the relief of city officials, a federal agency has given its approval to plans to tear down the old city pier in order to build a new one.

City Administrator Paul E. Cook said the federal green light means construction of the new pier can begin by early next summer.

“We’ve cleared a hurdle,” he said. “We were a little concerned that we’d have another agency to fight.”

Cook said the placement of the old pier on a list of federally protected historic sites had increased the city government’s anxiety about getting permission to tear it down. A new pier, expected to cost about $11 million, could not be started until the fate of the old one was determined, Cook said.

There has been statewide interest in Huntington Beach’s pier situation, largely because the old structure--which dates back to 1914--is one of the better known landmarks in Southern California. About 1.5 million tourists a year strolled the old pier before it was shut down for safety reasons about 1 1/2 years ago.

Earlier this year--and against the objections of the City Council--the old, deteriorating pier was placed on the federal Register of Historic Places. Such a designation usually keeps an old building from being changed or destroyed.

But engineers last summer unanimously recommended that the old pier be razed, saying it was not feasible to rebuild it. About 200 feet of the pier, including the restaurant at the end of the structure, was washed away in a violent storm Jan. 17 and 18, 1988. The rest of the pier was closed the following July because of its unsafe condition.

The City Council’s decision to raze the old pier and build a new one hinged on not running into federal opposition to tearing it down, Cook said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in a letter dated Dec. 5, notified the city that it has reviewed the pier situation and has no objection to the city’s tearing down the old structure.

“The city of Huntington Beach has considered all appropriate alternatives and has determined that the only feasible alternative is to demolish and reconstruct the pier. We have consulted with the state historic preservation officer and have determined that the proposed action is appropriate for the condition of the pier,” the FEMA letter, signed by Tommie C. Hamner, chief of the agency’s Disaster Assistance Program, stated.

Cook said the only thing the city must do now is to “document the old pier through photos and measurements and put those documentations on record so that in case any historians want information for a book or something like that, the information will be available.”

Cook said the city also hopes to retain “a little bit of the old flavor of the old pier” in the construction of the new one. “We want some of the architecture to replicate features of the old pier,” Cook said.

Final architectural drawings for the new pier have not been completed. The architectural firm headed by Ron Yeo of Corona del Mar is in charge of designing both the pier and a proposed plaza on the beach end of the new pier.

Preliminary drawings by Yeo’s firm depict a new pier that will be 1,819 feet in length--just a tad longer than the 1,800-foot old pier, which had been home to the newly renovated the End Cafe until the January, 1988, storm.

Pat Marr, a member of the design team in Yeo’s firm, said Thursday that the preliminary designs call for the new pier to have a diamond-shaped end. The diamond would surround an eight-sided restaurant building.

“We decided on the octagonal design for historical reasons,” said Marr. “Our research showed that the original building at the end of the pier was octagonal. It was called a ‘sun room,’ and it was built about 1930. Later it became a restaurant.”

The eight-sided restaurant also would allow maximum use of windows and thus give diners ample chance to view the ocean, Marr said.

The diamond-shaped area surrounding the restaurant “will allow shuttles (vehicles) from the land to come out to the pier and turn around the restaurant easily,” Marr said.

The pier also will be designed with the ocean end higher than its beach end, the reverse of the earlier design, Marr said. Engineers have said that a major reason storms ripped away the end of the pier in both 1983 and 1988 was that the ocean end was so low in the water. Marr said that while the Yeo firm now only has “conceptual” architectural plans for the new pier, the general goal is to incorporate many historic features. “It (the new pier) will pretty much mimic the old pier,” he said.

Cook said that a stepped-up fund-raising campaign for the new pier will be launched in January. Cook said the city so far “has $6.5 million either in hand or promised.” He said $3 million of that is pledged by the city, with the rest earmarked by the county, state and federal governments.

A wide array of private fund raising also is in progress for the pier. But Cook said the January campaign will kick off concentrated efforts to obtain corporate donations.

The city hopes to begin demolition of the old pier in May, and start on the new pier shortly afterward, with the goal of opening the new pier by Labor Day, 1991, Cook said.