IMPERIAL BEACH –
A stroll down the 1,500-foot-long slightly uneven Imperial Beach pier soon will be much smoother – a $1.2 million repair and maintenance project will begin next year.
Port officials are in the design phase, which is about 30 percent complete, engineering manager Mahmoud Akhavain said this week. Work is scheduled to begin in August and expected to take about six months. After a recent routine inspection, the San Diego Unified Port District agreed to replace about one of every five planks that line the 24-foot-wide pier. A walk down the pier is bumpy at best, and for those who have difficulty walking, it can be a jarring journey.
“I think it will be easier for people to walk on,” said Imperial Beach Mayor Jim Janney. “It will be smoother. All around, it will be a good improvement. That pier takes a beating 365 days a year.”
The port, which manages the city's tidelands and pier, also plans to replace three missing pilings that were torn loose from the pier and later washed ashore in a storm that churned 18-foot waves along San Diego in December.
“While not critical for immediate emergency repair, the pilings should be repaired to maintain the structural integrity of the pier,” said Matthew Martinez, vice president of Blaylock Engineering, the firm that inspected the pier.
Port officials also will replace an aging sewer line that runs to the restrooms and Tin Fish restaurant. The sewer line has had several leaks in the past year because it is old and was poorly designed. Views from the popular fishing pier include Mexico's Coronado Islands, Point Loma and Tijuana.
In addition to the restaurant and restrooms, the pier has a lifeguard tower and a boat landing under the restaurant – although the landing isn't used by the public because the water is too rough to be safe.
Plans also call for the installation of “rub strips,” a fender system that will protect against minor impacts to the boat landing, to keep it operational for emergencies.
Finally, the port will replace corroded steel support brackets under the pier railing and reinforce pilings in the surf for added strength.
Imperial Beach resident Mark James, 41, took advantage of his Monday off – and his birthday – to fish for bonita, shark and mackerel. The landscape architect said he prefers the Imperial Beach pier to the concrete piers in Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach.
“This is timber,” James said. “It's natural. The others don't have that pier feeling.”
James said he supports any improvements. “If they believe it needs work, they should come and take care of it,” he said.
The most recent renovation project by the port closed the pier for five days in April 2006 as part of a $1.8 million project to replace cracked planks and old timber pilings, and to repair corroded steel pilings.
The Imperial Beach pier, which has a timber and steel piling system, has been damaged, destroyed and rebuilt many times since it was built in 1909. The city's first pier washed out to sea in 1948 during a severe storm. In the early 1980s, storms destroyed a T-shaped pier built in 1962.
Imperial Beach rebuilt the current pier in 1989. But that year, the city plunged into a cash crisis and had to ask the state to help pay the repair bills. The state allowed the port to take control of the tidelands and pier to relieve Imperial Beach of an annual $350,000 payment.
Costs for maintaining the pier are included in the port's capital assets budget. The port expects to keep the pier open during construction.
Janine Zuniga: (619) 498-6636; janine.zuniga@uniontrib.com
