Renovation Project to Make Broadway Pier Shipshape

At the Broadway Pier, thousands of visitors each year have boarded Navy helicopter carriers, submarines, destroyers, frigates and cruisers, as well as navy training vessels from Mexico, Australia, Portugal, Canada and Chile.

But, since November, the visitors have been absent. Instead, crews have removed parts of the deck and now are driving 340 concrete pilings into the bay bottom.

It is part of a $9.3-million project to replace the pilings and part of the deck on the 850-foot portion of the pier that was built in 1913, according to project manager Dee Burch. The pier was enlarged by 200 feet in 1930, but those pilings will not be replaced, he said.

Work on the pier, which is owned by the San Diego Unified Port District, is being done by Kiewit Pacific Construction of Seattle. About 30 feet of the concrete decking on either side of the 130-foot-wide pier has been removed. The work was necessary because steel beams beneath the deck had rusted and pieces of concrete had broken off, Burch said.

He said records are unclear as to how the old pilings were put into place, but he believes that pipes were set in the ground and that workers then drilled into the seabed and poured concrete down the pipes.

The method may have worked, Burch said, but water was always able to seep in during the process. The excess water in the pilings weakened the structure.

The modern pilings are precast, Burch said, with concrete poured into a reinforced mold. The ready-made pilings are slammed into the bottom by a pile driver.

The project is scheduled for completion in June, 1991, Burch said. Until then, the public will have to wait to visit any ships, said Dan Wilkens, a spokesman for the Port District.

Navy vessels have been docking at the Broadway Pier for public view for about 20 years, said George Baker, ship-visit schedule coordinator for the Navy. The vessels are usually open for viewing on weekends. From 1,200 to 1,500 people visit on Saturdays and from 1,500 to 2,000 on Sundays, he said.