Pier Gives Malibu a Sinking Feeling

The city of Malibu is grappling over what to do with its closed and crippled pier as the predicted winter storms of El Nino fast approach.

The landmark pier--built in 1906 and long a favorite backdrop for movies--is rotting and must be repaired if it is to have more than a fighting chance of withstanding severe surf lashings.

City officials acquired a 30-year lease on the pier from the state just three months ago and had hoped to rehabilitate it with county bond money. Now they fear that the structure is so weak that the surf may tear it apart this winter, sending busted pilings into seaside homes like missiles.

The three choices confronting the city are all expensive. It would cost $1 million to $2 million and require two months to tear down the pier. Several hundred thousand dollars would have to be invested on reinforcements just to get through the winter. Or the city could walk away from its lease and turn the pier back over to the state, making the state fiscally responsible for any mishaps.

The Malibu City Council is under pressure to make a decision soon.

Said City Manager Harry Peacock: “We’re not making any progress on this. And the longer we wait, the more of a chance of a storm coming up” with the city left holding the bag.

Discussion of the pier’s fate was not scheduled to come before the City Council until its regular meeting Oct. 27. However, Peacock said, the urgency of the situation may dictate a quicker resolution, with the subject expected to be addressed at a combined City Council-Planning Commission meeting Tuesday.

It was not supposed to be like this.

In July, the city initiated what seemed to be an attractive plan to reopen its neglected pier.

The city leased the pier from the state essentially rent-free, said Russ Guiney, Malibu sector superintendent for the state’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which had been managing the pier.

At the same time, the city approached the county for a $2.9-million grant, with the funds seemingly available under 1992’s Proposition A.

With its new lease and funds, the city planned to rehabilitate the pier and reopen it to the public.

But three months later, the pier is on virtual life support, creating a new, tempestuous chapter in its 90-year history. It was gutted in a 1942 storm and later rebuilt to serve as a World War II Coast Guard station before being acquired by the state in 1980.

The pier has been home to fishing boats and fishers, been a backdrop in numerous films and was designated a state historical point of interest, said Judge John Merrick, former president of the Malibu Historical Society.

The proprietor of Alice’s Restaurant, at the foot of the pier, glowingly predicted several years ago that the pier would “become a focal point for Malibu, a place that glitters at night.”

But Alice’s has closed, and the pier is now described as “a derelict” by John Clement, Malibu’s director of public works.

The problem, Clement said, is that its 17 years of management, the state allowed the pier’s infrastructure to rot until a major storm forced the attraction’s closure in January 1995.

Now, city officials are not certain the pier is sound enough to hold heavy equipment, Clement said. Repairing the structure from floating barges, on the other hand, would be “prohibitively expensive,” he said.

No one knows just how many of the pier’s 300 pilings need replacing. At least three dozen, maybe more, are rotted, Clement said. It may be easier to simply build a new structure, he said.

In addition, no county grant has become available. Joel Bellman, spokesman for county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, said the county will release the money only if Malibu guarantees that it can completely rehabilitate or rebuild the pier. Yaroslavsky does not want the city to get part way through the task, then come back for more money, Bellman said.

As part of a grant deal, Bellman said, the county would require Malibu to pay up to $125,000 a year for beach maintenance from the rents it expects to get from pier concessionaires.

City Manager Peacock said these conditions are making it “increasingly unlikely” that the city will get the grant on “acceptable terms,” effectively forcing Malibu to scrap its plans.

Even if the city were to receive the grant, it would need state emergency permits if it chose to tear down the pier before the storms. Alan Scott, a manager with the State Lands Commission, says those emergency approvals are unlikely.

“Malibu’s concern is that the pier may come down during El Nino. But nobody knows that for sure,” he said. “There is no emergency.”

Scott said the city had agreed to “major repairs to the pier,” and he insists these can still be done. Neither he nor the public “want to see the pier go away,” he said.

Guiney of the state parks department said the city could strengthen the pier for about $600,000, then finish rehabilitating it after the storms.

“We’re surprised that three months into the lease, they’re talking about terminating it and giving the pier back,” Guiney said. “We’ve leased the pier to them for 30 years.”

Malibu merchants and residents, meanwhile, are upset about how the matter has dragged out.

Paul Williams, manager of the Pier View Cafe, said that a reopened pier would bring in more tourists--and business. “People come here to see the pier,” he said. “If [Los Angeles] can rebuild the Venice Pier, we should be able to rebuild ours. After all, Malibu is supposed to be rich.”

Judy Landon, manager of the Windsail restaurant, remembers fishing on the pier alongside her brother, Chris. Showing off her favorite view of the pier, she asked, “How could they let it go?”

Richard Page, owner of the Casa Malibu hotel, said: “Our guests used to walk over and fish the pier. Now . . . when they ask why the pier’s closed, we say that it’s due to a storm nearly three years ago. They just don’t understand it. Neither do I.”

Robert Allen, who owns the house immediately north of the pier, is worried that El Nino’s high tides and strong currents will rip out the pilings and drive them into beachfront properties such as his.

“Someone needs to get off the dime here and just get this going and serve the public,” he said. “The public is going to be ill served if the pier falls down, and they’re fighting over money instead of repairing the pier.”