Contract Awarded to Shore Up Pier Garage

As city officials await the completion of a downtown parking garage, they are spending nearly $1 million to make sure an old one remains standing.

The Ventura City Council this week awarded a $614,137 contract to Hayward Baker Inc. of Santa Paula to brace the beachfront garage near the Ventura Pier against earthquakes.

Costs of management, design and testing are expected to push the project’s total cost to $924,000.

Financed through a 1995 bond sale, the project will include construction of two concrete walls on the 26-year-old garage’s east and west sides to improve seismic resistance.

Forty new piles will be built into the garage’s foundation. Drainage will be improved and parking stripes repainted.

At least half of the 489-space garage will remain open through construction, which is to begin after Feb. 20 and be completed by mid-June.

The bonds are to be paid off with projected parking revenues. Issuing them did not require voter approval.

The city already has poured $197,615 into the project, repairing concrete around the garage’s public restrooms.