$160,000 in Upgrades OKd to Ready Ventura Pier for New Restaurant : Business: Added costs to reinforce the wharf brings the total tab to nearly $1 million, although officials say finances will be recovered in future lease payments.

Rushing to open a restaurant at the base of the Ventura Pier before the end of the year, the Ventura City Council has approved spending another $160,000 to upgrade the original proposal and reinforce wharf supports.

The additional funds approved Monday night bring the total cost of the restaurant to nearly $1 million, although officials said the funds will be recovered in future lease payments.

Eric Wachter, who owns Eric Ericsson’s Fish Co. on South Seaward Avenue, won a competitive bid to operate the new pier restaurant last year.

Wachter and Ventura businessman Chuck Smith also are preparing to open Pineapples, another restaurant under construction across the California Street Plaza from the Holiday Inn, just north of the pier.

“The addition of the restaurant and the opening of Pineapples will mean we’ll have people finally going down California Street and crossing the [Ventura Freeway] bridge,” Mayor Tom Buford said before Monday’s meeting.

“It’s an inviting vista,” he said. “The combination of opening it up and having a couple of restaurants down there is clearly going to increase foot traffic.”

City officials last year identified the pier restaurant as a top priority, agreeing to spend up to $830,000 to construct the building, which they say will attract more tourists to Ventura.

Wachter’s architects have designed a two-level structure that will have dining areas on both floors and a cocktail lounge along one wall. A snack bar along the front of the wharf also is planned to cater to pedestrians.

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But cost estimates based on the design plans have exceeded the $830,000 ceiling approved by the council last year.

The extra $160,000 would cover $120,000 in additional construction expenses as well as $30,000 to shore up the pier supports beneath the building and $10,000 to upgrade an elevator that will make the building accessible to the disabled.

“It improves the downtown area in terms of attractions, which is what you need to get people here and have them come back,” Buford said. “It’ll also be nice for the people who live here.”

Under terms of the lease negotiated between Wachter and city officials, the $990,000 cost of the building and pier improvements will be recovered through rental payments in future years.

The restaurant plans call for a two-story, 6,000-square-foot wooden building on the north side of the pier’s base. There will be a dining room on the ground floor with upstairs seating overlooking the dining area, Wachter said.

Wachter said his early designs already have met enthusiastic support from city planners, and that he could be ready to apply for a building permit as soon as next month. He plans to open the business before Christmas.

Contractors have almost finished a multimillion-dollar face lift at the California Street Plaza, the courtyard between the Holiday Inn and the parking structure next door.

Those improvements combined with the long-awaited pier restaurant, Pineapples, and a number of smaller specialty shops planned in the Promenade area during the next 12 months, have city tourism officials eagerly anticipating an influx of visitors.

“I’m delighted to see it all,” said Bill Clawson, executive director of the Ventura Visitors & Convention Bureau, who has been on the job only eight months.

“I couldn’t have gotten here at a better time as far as the way Ventura is progressing,” he said, referring to an unrelated effort under way to upgrade downtown by widening the sidewalks and installing new street lamps and landscaping.

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The California Street Plaza renovation and new restaurants “will make that area a nice counterpoint to the improvements in the downtown area,” Clawson said. “It’s going to give people all the more reason to stop in Ventura.

“Step by step, we’re becoming quite an attractive visitor destination,” he said. “There’s nothing like a restaurant with a killer ocean view to attract visitors.”