SAN DIEGOSAN DIEGO — City officials plan to reopen a portion of the Ocean Beach Pier after months of being closed due to storm damage.
The public will be allowed to walk on the pier up to the bait shop and café starting Friday, city officials said. The 55-year-old pier has been closed since January after high surf caused some railing boards to break.
Community and business leaders in the area welcomed news of the pier’s reopening, but many still want to know what the city plans to do to keep the pier open in the long term.
The Ocean Beach Town Council, a nonprofit that advocates for the community, held a two-hour virtual town hall on the future of the pier Wednesday evening. Mayor Todd Gloria, Council President Jennifer Campbell and city engineers ed nearly 100 of the public for the discussion.
The town council also conducted an online survey of 400 people from May 15 to May 25 that found 53 percent of respondents want the city to make immediate repairs for partial reopening and more than 52 percent rebuilding the pier altogether.
About 45 percent of respondents said they want the pier to be rehabilitated for full reopening, according to the survey. Some 3 percent selected “other” as an option.
Community who spoke during the town hall in of building a new pier proposed seeking private funds to pay for it, and others recommended building a pier that incorporates green energy or an educational component.
Some community floated the idea of not having a pier at all.
“At a time when we’re experiencing an affordable housing crisis and a homelessness crisis, we are talking about spending public funds on a pier instead of looking at what the needs … of our community is, our community being the city of San Diego,” said Ocean Beach resident Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi.
A report released in April 2019 showed the pier has suffered significant deterioration. The 364-page report, completed by the advisory firm Moffatt & Nichol, explained that the city could repair, rehabilitate or replace it.
According to the report, repairing the damage to the pier’s columns would cost about $8 million, rehabilitating the pier would cost $30 million to $50 million, and replacing the pier would cost about $60 million.
Ralph Teyssier, a structural engineer and son of Leonard Teyssier, who was the original contractor who built the pier in 1966, reviewed the 2019 report independently and said he recommends that the city start with remedial repairs of the pier and plan for a new pier.
“It’s disappointing to a lot of people that the pier is nearing the end of its service life, but we have a lot of opportunity,” Teyssier said.
Beach area resident Sabrina Hahnlein said she understands some people might not want to spend tax money on building a new pier, but she believes other people are willing to spend money to save the current pier.
“The pier does not belong to OB; it belongs to San Diego,” Hahnlein said.
Gloria acknowledged that addressing the needs of the pier would be expensive, and it would be a “significant lift” to find the funds. He said city staff is working to identify funding from government partners at the state and federal level.
The city most recently spent $250,000 to repair the pier for a partial reopening, Gloria said.
Campbell plans to host more community forums to get from San Diego residents.
“The partial reopening, of course, is a great step forward; we’re really happy about that,” Campbell said. “But, of course, the important thing and the ultimate discussion is to figure out how to repair, replace or get it fully and totally operational and safe for everything.”
Before the pier sustained damages in January, which lead to its most recent closure, the city had completed emergency repairs in 2019 after another winter storm. The city fixed 2,200 feet of railing, sewer and electrical lines for a total of $430,000.
