The city council approved a consultant to design the rehabilitation of the Manhattan Beach Pier on April 7.
A budget of $1.5 million has been set aside for the renovation. The portion approved last Tuesday was $155,400, with a design contingency of $31,800 to go to Nonzero\Architecture.
The structures to be rehabilitated include the Roundhouse Aquarium, built in 1921; the pier itself, which was built in 1917 and is the oldest standing concrete pier on the West Coast; Â and the comfort station, which includes the showers and bathroom.
Proposed work includes repainting the building exteriors with an anti-graffiti coating, replacing the doors of the Roundhouse and comfort station, replacing the toilet partitions and plumbing fixtures in the bathrooms, sandblasting and painting the railings, replacing the water and sewer lines along the pier, electrical and roofing repairs at the Roundhouse and restoring the mosaic tiles by the showers and down by the sand.
The necessary work was identified in an assessment of city facilities in 2013. The comfort station and Roundhouse were last rehabilitated in 2002.
Maintenance of the pier, which is a designated California landmark, is paid for by parking fees from the lots at the base of the pier.
Public Works Director Tony Olmos estimated that work would begin in October and be done in May 2016.
Although small sections of the pier may be closed, the pier will remain open through construction, he said.
Mayor Wayne Powell said he recalled the pier’s railings recently being painted and asked if there had been a problem with the work.
Olmos said no, and that paint only lasts three to five years in the marine environment.
Olmos also reassured Powell that the sandblasting will be contained so that no pieces fall into the ocean.
Earlier in the meeting, a representative from the Roundhouse Aquarium said that it was planning a $62,000 makeover.
The motivation, she said, came from the report from the Urban Land Institute, which evaluated the city’s downtown in January.
“We took note that visitors help the economy of downtown,” said Lynne Gross, president of the Roundhouse’s board. “Living in that building out there, we are a destination. We think by spiffing up, we will bring in more visitors and are hoping they will go elsewhere downtown.”
The planned improvements include redoing the fish tanks with LED lights, adding an interactive area upstairs where visitors could look through microscopes and introducing new exhibits such as “Why Did My Goldfish Die?”
The aquarium still needs to raise the funds for its makeover. Like the pier, it will stay open during construction.
The city council directed the public works department to coordinate the pier’s renovation with the aquarium. They also asked Olmos to report back the total projected costs of the rehabilitation. ER
