HUNTINGTON BEACH : Hearing to Be Held Today on Pier Plan

A wide-ranging public hearing on plans to rebuild the city’s historic pier and develop the area around it will be held Feb. 10, Mayor Thomas F. Mays announced Monday.

“We’ll initially meet outdoors at the pier at 8:30 a.m., and then we’ll go to City Hall for an indoor meeting at 9:30 a.m.,” Mays said. “We’re hoping to get a lot of input and new ideas, including views of several architects.”

Mays said the special session will include discussion of rebuilding the storm-damaged pier, constructing a shopping plaza at the base of the new pier, building a parking structure and developing land south of the pier into a restaurant area to be called Pierside Village.

Pierside Village has been the most controversial of all the city’s downtown redevelopment plans. Critics, including the State Lands Commission, have said that the city should not construct any more commercial buildings on the beach side of Pacific Coast Highway.

Mays said Monday that the size of the Pierside Village project may be reduced substantially. A City Council subcommittee, of which Mays is a member, has recommended that Pierside Village be cut back from 75,000 square feet to about 30,000.

“What we’re talking about is asking the architect to go back and see if it would be economically feasible to cut down Pierside Village to only two new restaurants,” Mays said.

The centerpiece of the city’s aggressive redevelopment push is the pier itself, which has been closed since July, 1988, because it is considered unsafe. The pier was battered by a severe storm in January, 1988, that washed away 200 feet at the end of the structure, including a newly rebuilt restaurant, the End Cafe.

A combination of federal, state and local government funds, plus private donations, are to be used to rebuild the pier. Construction is scheduled to start this summer.