A restaurant at the end of the Seal Beach Pier is still possible.
After months of closed-session negotiations between city and state officials and a potential tenant, a City Council workshop made public this week the fact that the city is going to have to spend a lot of money no matter what is done to the pier.
The city essentially has four options: make mandatory upgrades (not really an option); tear down the former location of Ruby’s Diner and leave an open space; repair the pier to accommodate a one-story building; or ready it to accommodate a two-story building. The mandatory repairs have to be made in any case.
According to the staff presentation given by Community Development Director Jim Basham, mandatory repairs to the pier will cost an estimated $845,000. Those expenses would include a new water line for fire service, relocating a Southern California Edison transformer, and additional decking.
The cost of demolishing the former restaurant and leaving the space open would be $1.7 million. The costs would include a additional pier decking to replace the empty hole that would be left after the building is demolished. That expense would still be necessary whether the space is left empty or a new building is put up in its place.
The cost to make repairs to accommodate a one-story building has been estimated at $3.4 million. The cost to accommodate a two-story building: $4.4 million. None of the cost estimates are related to actually constructing a building, but to preparing the pier to hold up a building. The cost estimates were apparently based in part on an engineer’s report that was submitted to the city in December 2014.
Councilman Michael Varipapa said the estimates were basically for the cost of work on the deck and below. Basham confirmed that was correct.
According to Finance Director Victoria Beatley, the city has sufficient funds for any of the options for the end of the pier.
Off The Hook, a proposed business owned by the Seal Beach residents who own the Original Fish Company, has expressed an interest in developing the space at the end of the Pier. Randy Hiatt, who represents Off The Hook, said his client would consider a one story building.
Gail Ayres asked why the community needed another restaurant in the area, a quarter mile out on the pier.
According to Nancey Kredell, when she and other Centennial volunteers sell memorabilia at the end of the pier, people always ask when the restaurant will open.
“We really want a restaurant at the end of the pier,” she said.
Mayor Ellery Deaton said that the city needed to make the mandatory repairs first.
According to Basham, nothing can be done until the city has renewed its so-called tidelands lease with the State Lands Commission. The 40-year old lease requires the city to maintain both the pier and the beach. Seal Beach does not own the dry sand beach. That belongs to the State of California.
The current lease is scheduled to expire in June 2016.
