State, Restaurateur Nearing Agreement on Pier Restoration Plans

After 20 months of talks, state officials said this week they are nearing an agreement with a restaurant owner and his partners to restore the crumbling Malibu Pier.

“We’re optimistic that within a month we will have a signed contract,” said Andrea Patterson, who heads the Concession Program Division of the state parks department.

State officials announced in November, 1989, their intent to award concession rights at the pier to Bob Yuro and three partners in exchange for a promise to restore the crumbling structure. However, the talks have languished and no work has been done.

Yuro, who operates Alice’s Restaurant at the pier, said that the state had amended its lease demands, adding, “I think we finally have an agreement that everyone can live with.”

Neither he nor state officials would disclose the terms of the contract, saying that details were still being negotiated.

Both parties said the arrangement calls for Yuro and the others to have concession rights at the pier for the next 20 years in exchange for paying for the restoration.

In the past, Yuro has said the work could cost up to $3.2 million, but he and state officials acknowledged that the agreement does not obligate the concessionaires to spend a specific dollar amount.

Long battered by severe storms and neglected by absentee landlords, the pier--which the state bought for $2.5 million from a Los Angeles businessman in 1980--is arguably Malibu’s most identifiable landmark.

Some of the pier’s boosters--including the Malibu Chamber of Commerce--have expressed concern that the pier may not be able to withstand a major storm and say the state should do the repairs before awarding the concession rights.

“I think the public interest is getting the runaround,” said Marty Cooper, a hotelier who owns the Malibu Beach Inn. “After all this time, the state hasn’t been forthcoming in letting us know when and how the pier is going to be brought up to structural standards.”

Cooper called it “unconscionable” that no engineering studies have been conducted at the pier since the state opened bids for the concession in 1989.

However, Patterson, the state parks official, insisted that the agreement being negotiated “will protect the state’s interests.”

Once an agreement is reached, she said, it will take two months to go into effect because the document must be reviewed by several agencies, including the Department of General Services and the Attorney General’s office.

She blamed the delay partly on a dispute between the parks department and the state Lands Commission, which owns the underwater property beneath the pier. The Lands Commission had said it wanted a share of the concession revenue, but in February dropped its demands.

Yuro’s plans call for expanding Alice’s Restaurant and adding a new restaurant at the pier’s landward end. A variety of shops and an expanded sportfishing operation would be located at the head of the pier. The concessionaires are also considering a plan to expand parking at the pier by building a platform above existing beachside parking.

Yuro said that if the negotiations conclude soon, repairs may begin as early as October.

Any plans to alter the character of the pier would need the approval of the California Coastal Commission, and would almost certainly have to meet the approval of Malibu officials.