A City Without Pier : Ventura: A massive rebuilding project will bring the much-loved 1,958-foot landmark back to public use.

Plank by plank, inching their way out over the Pacific with chain saws and hammers, construction workers are rebuilding all 1,958 feet of the 121-year-old Ventura Pier.

By the time it reopens in October, little if anything will remain of the original landmark that has, through fire, termite infestation and countless storms, become one of Ventura County’s beloved fishing spots.

Yet while all of the pier’s fir and redwood decking and 15% of its pilings will be new, it will remain--the way city engineers see it--the same old Ventura Pier.

“The same rule applies to the pier as applies to wooden boats,” said Mark Watkins, senior civil engineer for the city of Ventura as he strolled the thick planks of the longest wooden pier in California. “You can replace pieces of it over the years, but it retains its original construction date.”

Watkins pointed to the renovated half of the pier--its uneven width, the undulating surface of its deck and the angled bend that breaks its shotgun thrust midway into the Pacific.

“We didn’t straighten any of that out,” Watkins said proudly. “We wanted to leave it the way it was so it would retain its character.”

Work on the $2.85-million project began last October.

Cushman Contracting Corp., with experience in restoring wooden piers such as Stearns Wharf in Santa Barbara and the Port Hueneme Fishing Pier, planned to demolish the deck working backward from the pier’s tip in toward the shore, then rebuild it moving from the shore out to sea.

Then, Watkins said, workers drove out to the seaward end and saw how badly the decaying planks buckled under their pickup truck’s weight. Plans changed.

Cushman workers began by widening the base of the pier, and pouring a concrete retaining wall to replace the timbers that once anchored the pier to the earthen bank lining Harbor Boulevard.

Then they started demolition at the landward end and replaced pilings and decking as they went, making the pier a solid platform from which their heavy crane could work.

Now, just about every weekday in good weather, the men don hard hats and life jackets and stick chain saws between the deck boards to slice through the 6-by-16-inch “stringers,” the long support beams that run from one row of pilings to the next.

Where necessary, they cut the steel bolts holding the beams together, although some already have been broken by the pier’s constant flexing in the waves. The crane then lifts out an entire section of deck at a time, stacking it with others for transport to a Santa Paula supplier who resells it for a fraction of the cost of new wood.

Termites, dry-rot and seagoing teredo worms have ruined some of the wood, but much of it is stout, clean timber, ready for use in landscaping, said Dave Drake, proprietor of Dave’s Building Supply, which is selling the stuff.

The wood ranges from telephone-pole-like timbers to the thick stringers and the sections of decking, some of it 8 by 20 feet, which are strong enough to be used whole.

“There’s an awful lot of ranchers around here that have to cross ditches on their property,” Drake said. “This is a ready-made bridge. You wouldn’t have to do a thing but put concrete on each end and drop it right in place.”

About 15% of the pilings have had to be replaced, said Watkins, the Ventura city engineer.

“You get both extremes,” said Les Cushman, the project superintendent. “Some of them were excellent, and some of them have been heavily damaged by the elements. Worms attack them and the wave action breaks the connections.”

The workers fasten a steel cable sling around each decaying piling and try to hoist it out of the sand by crane. Some pilings snap, leaving rotten stumps that later must be cut down to the level of the sand.

The workers then pound new pilings into the sand, 14 inches thick, ranging from 40 feet tall near the waterline to 70 feet long at pier’s end.

At the waterline, the pilings are inserted into 18-inch diameter PVC pipes filled with concrete, for extra protection against the punishing surf.

Each row of pilings is topped by a 12-by-12-inch pile cap, a beam that runs the width of the pier. New 6-by-16-inch stringers, all of Douglas fir, then are laid across the pile caps, their ends overlapping as they stretch out to sea.

Steel pins are driven down through the pile caps into the pilings and steel straps are fastened with bolts to bind the pilings, pile caps and stringers together. Finally, more steel pins fasten the 4-by-12-inch deck planks to the stringers, Watkins said.

Last week, workers also hammered away at stairways rising from the sand to the pier and at small buildings that will house restrooms and a combination snack bar and bait shop.

Eventually they will add the trimmings: railings, benches, new light fixtures, fish-cleaning sinks and telescopes.

Finally, San Francisco environmental artist Ned Kahn will install a strange copper device in a slot at pier’s end.

Waves hitting a bell-shaped copper opening at sea level will force water up through a nautilus-shaped tube and out a 24-inch-diameter spout 6 feet above the pier, shooting showers of seawater into the air.

Next month, the city of Ventura plans to solicit bids for applicants to run the restaurant that will be built near where the Pier Fish House Restaurant once stood.

The surface of the pier near its base will be extended 55 feet along the coast to the northwest and 100 feet toward the water to accommodate the restaurant, expected to be 4,000 to 5,000 square feet, officials said.

The city once contemplated developing retail shops and other restaurants along the beach northwest of the pier. But the softening economy smothered those plans, said Barbara Harison, director of the Ventura Department of Parks and Recreation.

“Plain and simple, the market for retail and even restaurants at this point is not real positive, from any of the economic indicators we’re getting,” Harison said.

The city took over ownership of the pier from the California Department of Parks and Recreation in 1990, agreeing also to bear responsibility for its restoration and the estimated $150,000-a-year upkeep it will need.

What has become a public landmark began as a private asset, built in 1872 by Joseph Wolfson, a Ventura barge operator.

Wolfson set up the San Buenaventura Wharf Co. the year before, selling enough stock to raise $45,000 for the wharf’s construction.

Christened with a bottle of California wine by Wolfson’s wife, Arcadia Camarillo, the 1,200-foot-long wharf soon began receiving visits every 10 days or so from coastal steamers bearing farm machinery, building materials, heating fuel and food.

Demolished by heavy surf in 1877, the San Buenaventura Wharf was quickly rebuilt, only to be damaged again in 1914 when waves shoved the steamer Coos Bay up against it, punching a 200-foot gap into it.

It succumbed to surf again in 1926 and to fire in 1934, to be rebuilt in its current incarnation four years later. By then, traffic of small coastal steamers had dwindled to nearly nothing, and the city of San Buenaventura bought the failing enterprise in 1940, selling it nine years later to the state of California.

Then in 1986, heavy surf damaged it so much that the state had to fence off its seaward end, cutting nearly two-thirds of it off from the public.

Through all its many lives, it is hard to tell whether any of the original pier is left, engineers said.

“You’ve got everything under the sun out here, it’s been worked on so many times,” mused Les Cushman.

While pilings may have to be replaced periodically--particularly the older ones--the decking could last up to 50 years, Watkins said.

Pier lovers are happy with the work so far, Watkins said. ‘

“Most people are real pleased to see that we’re working,” he said. “And they want to know if they are going to have the ability to go all the way to the end. They are.”

He added with a smile, “The other question we get all the time is, ‘When’s it gonna open?’ ”

Ventura Pier Reconstruction

PIER FACTS

Total Length * 1,958 feet, the longest wood pier in California.

Pilings * 109 rows, with 508 pilings per row. * Made of Douglas fir. * Landward end pilings are 12-inches square, 16-feet long. * At the water line, round 14-inch diameter pilings, 40-feet long, sunk into 18-inch diameter PVC pipes filled with concrete. * At pier’s end, round, 14-inch diameter pilings, 70-feet long, sunk into the sand.

Lumber * 1 million board feet, which includes 300,000 board feet of decking. (One board foot 12 inches by 12 inches by 1 inch thick.

Construction * Each row of pilings is topped by a 12-by-12-inch pile cap, a beam that runs the width of the pier. New stringers, all of Douglas fir, are then laid across the pile caps, their ends overlapping as they stretch out to sea. Steel pins are driven throughout the pile caps into the pilings. Steel straps hold the stringers and caps to the pilings, and more steel pins fasten the 4-by-12-inch deck planks to the stringers.

Wave Sculpture * Created by San Francisco environmental artist Ned Kahn. One end dips into water and connects to a loop of copper pipe that runs through open slot in pier decking. Waves hitting the sculpture force water up through the pipe, shooting a spray of seawater into the air.