HUNTINGTON BEACH : 3 Buildings Moved Off Doomed Pier

As massive trucks towed three buildings off the Municipal Pier early Tuesday morning--perhaps for good--Lucy Chouinard chased on foot, capturing the procession on videotape.

“I’ll miss these buildings,” Chouinard said, peering through her video camera as the 1930s snack stands and bait shop rolled along Main Street, past the newly opened Pierside Pavilion center.

Then, motioning toward the center’s glitzy clothing stores, surf shop and concert hall that now overlook the doomed pier, she added, “Now, these I don’t like.”

Like it or not, the city’s downtown metamorphosis continues, culminating with the rebuilding of the landmark pier during the next 18 months.

The decades-old buildings rolling through the heart of the downtown redevelopment zone at 4 a.m. once were known as the Tackle Box, Captain’s Galley and Neptune’s Locker. They were hauled about three miles to a city storage yard on Gothard Street near Slater Avenue, where inspectors will evaluate their historical value, if any.

Unless the inspectors’ findings prompt a dramatic reversal of present city policy, the structures will probably be demolished, officials say.

The city’s Pier Design Committee, a City Council advisory board, says the buildings are too worn to be used on the new pier. Among the committee’s 11 members, only Jerry Person, a leading historic preservationist in the city, voted to include them on the new structure.

The council has said it will follow the advice of its advisory board. However, if the buildings were to be leveled when the pier demolition gets under way later this month, the city could jeopardize a $1.3-million federal grant for rebuilding the 76-year-old structure, officials say.

The grant hinges on an agreement among the city and state and federal agencies stipulating that the city must make every reasonable effort to incorporate the look of the historic pier into the design of the new one. So, if the city destroys pier buildings that are found to be historically significant, it may be in violation of that pact, which could cancel the federal aid, officials said.

So, rather than postpone the pier reconstruction project any further, the council decided to store the buildings at the city yard--at a cost of $26,500--until their historic value is firmly resolved.

The remaining buildings on the pier, the lifeguard tower and a pair of restrooms, will be demolished along with the structure, city spokesman Dennis Williams said Tuesday. A temporary lifeguard tower will be installed on the beach until a permanent tower opens along with the new pier, scheduled in March, 1992, Williams said.

After originally planning to begin dismantling the pier in early August, city officials agreed to put off the project until after the peak beach-going season.

And within two hours after the unofficial end of summer, Labor Day, workers from Garden Grove-based Snow House Movers hoisted the first of the two snack shops onto a sprawling, 24-wheel trailer.

Beneath the incandescence of a full moon, the three weather-battered buildings were carefully guided, one by one, across Pacific Coast Highway and onto Main Street.

Movers towed the 13-by-44-foot snack huts across the street with little difficulty. But the bait and tackle shop, measuring 19 by 30 feet, posed more of a challenge.

Hauling the shop from its location near the end of the pier, movers cautiously crept along the length of the deck, with barely three feet to spare between the pier railings. The tedious process, in which workers started and stopped every few feet to readjust the trailer’s direction, consumed a full 30 minutes.

But by 3:40 a.m., the 16-wheel tow trucks, with the pier artifacts in tow, cleared the tight corner from Main Street onto Walnut Avenue, and the buildings were on their way to their temporary home.

Despite the structures’ broken windows, chipped brown paint and cracked walls, Chouinard, a 15-year Westminster resident, marveled at the old, Art Deco buildings she viewed through her camera lens. “They even look better than they did on the pier,” she said.