Council Approves Plan to Renovate Ventura Pier

After a year of agonizing over how strong, how long, how wide and how wooden the refurbished pier should be, the City Council approved plans Monday night to move forward with renovation of the wave-beaten Ventura Pier.

With the approval of a $2.1-million repair project, planning will begin as early as this week and reconstruction could be completed by June of 1998.

Council members and local pier supporters alike expressed relief that at last plans were moving forward.

“We’re supportive of what they are trying to do,” said Monty Clark, a member of Friends of the Pier. “We’re all in the same boat together here. They’ve pretty much given us what we asked for.”

The restoration project has been broken into two phases. First, the city will focus on strengthening and reinforcing the existing pier. This will probably include installing steel piles to strengthen the more vulnerable wooden piles.

Then the city will turn its attention to rebuilding at least 220 feet of the pier demolished by pounding winter waves in December 1995.

The council ultimately intends to restore all 420 feet of the 1,958-foot-long wooden pier that was lost during a winter storm. But the city’s insurance settlement will pay for only about half the cost.

Before any construction begins, the city will conduct a series of studies to determine the most cost-effective and efficient way to restore the pier so that it will not fall prey to the forces of nature again soon.

The city aims to complete the strengthening and reinforcement phase by Nov. 1--the official start of the winter season.