HUNTINGTON BEACH : Pier Group Brags About Its Project

City officials love to brag about it.

“It’s a project that’s staying on time and on budget,” exulted City Engineer Bob Eichblatt. Added a beaming Mayor Peter M. Green: “We’re very pleased.”

The object of the bragging is the city’s new $11.7-million pier, currently under construction. As summer draws to a close, the outline of the nascent pier is now more than a skeleton.

New concrete beams and pilings rise clean and white from the roiling ocean waters. Viewed from the top, the flat expanse of concrete looks like a freeway headed out to sea.

“It’s coming along well, and, yes, it’ll be finished by late next spring, as the city predicted,” said Gary Davis, construction-project supervisor for Riedel International Inc., which is building the new pier.

Huntington Beach’s best known landmark is its municipal pier. But the city has been without a usable structure since July, 1988, when the old one--built in 1914--was closed for safety reasons. Winter storms in January, 1988, had ripped 250 feet from the end of the old structure, also carrying off The End Cafe.

Demolition of the old pier began last fall. Riedel started work on the new pier as remnants of the old were removed.

The old pier was 1,820 feet long; the new pier will be 1,828 feet in length. Architecturally, the old and new piers are somewhat similar. But the new pier will have a diamond-shaped point at its end, and unlike the old, will rise 10 feet from beach end to ocean terminus.

Davis said the elevated ocean end of the pier will help protect it from storm damage that wrecked the old structure.

“It wasn’t necessarily the force of the water hitting the pilings that caused the destruction of the old pier,” Davis said. “The problem was that the water was coming up underneath the pier and hitting the bottom of the pier.”

It was literally a case of massive hydraulic lift--water pressure pushing the bottom of the pier loose from its pilings, Davis said. With an elevated end, the chance for such storm damage is greatly reduced.

A mild winter this year helped construction move on schedule, Davis said. “We haven’t had any weather that has hurt us at all,” he said.

Davis said the city has also contributed to construction progress by not demanding many changes in the basic plans.

“We’ve only had about $150,000 in change orders from the city, and in terms of a contract this size, that’s peanuts,” he said.

However, there will be one major change in the project’s look. The concrete columns that support the structure will be slightly angled rather than traditionally perpendicular.

“We initially were going to have all the pilings placed vertically,” Davis said. “But we found that it’s better to place some batter piling for strength.” Batter pilings are support columns of concrete that are slightly slanted.

Hordes of spectators watched the construction this summer. In fact, city officials believe that the construction-rubbernecks are among the reasons that the city’s beach had an increase in attendance in July, despite dismal, overcast weather.

“The main reasons were the competitions and tournaments on the city beach, but, yes, we think the (spectators) helped keep beach attendance up,” said Ron Hagan, the city’s director of community services. “People like to watch the construction.”