To the relief of elderly and physically challenged boaters, the Redondo City Council approved the repair for one of the two broken boat hoists in King Harbor. The city expects to pay $242,000 to fix what Councilman Pat Aust said was installed, originally, as a “stopgap” measure.
The King Harbor boat hoists have been inactive since late 2014, following the completion of the City’s purchase of Redondo Beach Marina last May, when the hoists’ beams were deemed “noticeably deficient” and the hoists were shut down for safety, to the dismay of boaters who used the hoists “about 100 times a month” in 2013, a figure given by City Manager Joe Hoefgen.
According to a city staff report, a further inspection from a structural engineer found that the damage to the hoists “was much more extensive and complicated than initially reported.” The south hoist was found to be so extensively damaged throughout that it has been permanently shut down. According to the city’s Interim Waterfront and Economic Development Director Laurie Koike, the cost for a replacement hoist would be between $550,000 and $650,000. With that figure in mind, that leaves the less-damaged north hoist to be the beneficiary of the city’s funds.
This is good news for 36 year city resident Sam Elder, who has been waging a campaign to get the hoists repaired, reading a prepared statement at the meeting “on behalf of all fisherman and boaters in the South Bay, but especially the elderly and physically challenged.”
Elder noted concerns that the city would eliminate the hoists, and would eventually be replaced by a launch ramp, which he says would prove difficult for boaters who are unable to enter the water to physically launch a boat, saying “it requires much more physical exertion and strength. This would leave no meaningful access to the water for those who cannot handle the exertion.”
Mayor Steve Aspel noted that the ramp “isn’t necessarily” in the city’s control, a fact that District 3 Councilman Pat Aust expanded on as he explained the background of the hoists.
“Those hoists were put into the harbor in the early ‘60s — they’ve been there for more than 50 years,” he said. “They’re facing about the same [as the] parking structure we own [at the pier] that’s 20 years newer than that hoist, which is in a very severe environment.”
“When we dedicated the harbor in 1966, it was only as a provisional, temporary solution to having a boat launch ramp,” he said, noting that the city now needs to install a boat ramp in order to receive Coastal Commission approval for waterfront revitalization.
“We can look at putting in another hoist and spending more money,” Aust said, “but I guarantee it would be a lot more than $500,000, or we would’ve put one in before.”
Repairs on the hoist are estimated to take ten to 12 weeks, according to Hoefgen, which would mean a late-summer reopening for the harbor’s north hoist.
