Workers to Begin Shoring Up Pier

Construction workers Monday will begin a three-month, $500,000 project to strengthen the Ventura Pier in preparation for the winter storm season.

Cushman Construction of Santa Barbara will repair the piles and brace the existing pier with steel pipes. The project is expected to be completed by the end of November. The unofficial start of the storm season is Nov. 1.

The end of the pier will be closed while the work is performed underneath. Eric Ericsson’s Fish Company, the restaurant at the landward end of the pier, will remain open throughout construction.

City Engineer Rick Raives explained that during the first phase of the project--which will take about a month--workers will replace about 30 damaged or deteriorated piles.

In the second phase, the contractor will brace the piles with steel pipes.

“Strengthening the pier now will keep the pier more storm-resistant and improves our chances of keeping what we have in place through the winter,” said pier consultant Jon Moore of Noble Consultants in Irvine.

In December 1995, a powerful winter storm lopped 425 feet off the end of Ventura’s 1,958-foot pier--once reputed to be the longest wooden pier in California. Since then, the pier has stood, weakened and incomplete, as city officials waited for insurance money and debated how to rebuild it.

Meanwhile, a new season of Ventura Pier fund-raising began this week when tickets went on sale for the annual Pier Under the Stars food, music and wine-tasting extravaganza Oct. 4. Already half the tickets are gone. Those interested in purchasing $25 tickets for the event should call 658-4726.

The strengthening should be completed in November, Raives said, and the reconstruction of the missing portion should begin in April 1998.