$2.2-Million Face Lift for Pier Approved

The City Council on Monday night approved a redesigned pier that will jut 80 feet further into the ocean and end in an octagonal deck.

The $2.2-million face lift is scheduled to start in April and be completed next October.

“It’s a very rewarding culmination of a public process,” Mayor Jim Friedman said.

The council’s action caps five years of sometimes passionate debate among Ventura residents. Some wanted the pier restored to its full 1,958-foot length before brutal winter storms in 1993 ripped away 420 feet. Others thought spending much more on the battered wooden structure would be wasteful.

Under the plan approved Monday night, the pier will be a little more than 1,600 feet long and will end in a 60-foot-wide, eight-sided deck. Through a cut in the deck, strollers will glimpse the tide’s ebb and flow and marine life below.

The 80-foot ramp to the deck will rise 4 feet to minimize wave damage.

The plan also calls for bolstering 160 feet of outer timber piles with steel piles.

The new design stems from a collaboration between city staff members and members of a residents group called the Pier into the Future Committee.

Committee members were enthused after the council’s unanimous vote.

“I think the new configuration does point in a new direction to the future but still recognizes the importance of the pier as it was in the past,” said Barbara Harison, a Pier into the Future board member.

City officials were equally effusive.

“Thank you for balancing your dreams with our reality,” Ron Calkins, Ventura’s public works director, told committee members after the vote.

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The council also accepted a $750,000 grant from the State Parks and Recreation Department. The total available for the job is $2.2 million, including earlier insurance refunds.

Pier into the Future President Monty Clark said the group will continue its fund-raising campaign, with the goal of establishing a $1-million endowment for further improvements on the pier, including more educational signs and additional benches.