Repairs are coming to Avila Pier this year — and boaters will be happy
Repairs to one of San Luis Obispo County’s most recognizable coastal landmarks may be coming soon — and sailors will be happy with the result.
The end of Avila Pier has been in a state of intermittent closures since 2015, when it was badly damaged by a storm, and further damaged in 2023’s “bomb cyclone.”
Since then, visitors have been able to walk parts of the pier as far out as the 50th support, but critical features of the pier such as the boat landing past the 50th support were left inaccessible.
Now, after several years of incremental repairs, the Port San Luis Harbor District is gearing up for the pier’s most significant repair efforts in years — one that will see boat access restored to the pier, Harbor Director Will Friedman said.
Friedman said the goal is to keep the Avila Pier open for public use as long as possible, even as other timber California piers have faced similar challenges such as the Santa Cruz Wharf collapse in late 2024.
“I think in some cases, there’s just been a decision to not try to restore them,” Friedman said. “That will not be the case with Avila Pier — it’s too much a part of the landscape here in Avila beach, and one way or another, it will remain.”
More than $1 million in repairs is on the way
With the 50th through 80th pilings — the support columns the hold up the pier — in need of repair to prevent further damage to the pier and a shifting financial outlook for the work to be done, Friedman said it’s not immediately clear how far down the pier the work can progress, but there’s a good chance that the end of the pier will reopen slightly shorter than it used to be.
Work commencing this spring will focus on building a new landing closer to the shore, and will leave the Harbor District with just over $1 million to repair as many of the bents — the sections of pier between each piling — as possible before funding runs out, Friedman said.
Repair work from the 50th through 58th piling is already complete, but installing a new boat landing will require further design work and approval from the California Coastal Commission, Friedman said.
According to the Harbor District board meeting staff report from Jan. 27, the district has procured enough material on-site to reach bent 70, while future work on a landing would be placed between the 73rd and 74th pilings.
A request for proposals for repairs to bents 58 through 80, along with the landing, is currently in the works, according to the staff report.
Friedman said in the wake of the 2023 storm, the Harbor District applied for grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offset some of the costs and allow for more extensive repairs, but was not awarded the funding it was hoping for, making the repairs take longer than hoped.
“Part of the difficulty we’ve had is that as time goes by, more damage occurs, so the price keeps going up,” Friedman said. “I was just out there yesterday, as a matter of fact, in one of our Harbor Patrol boats going around the pier with our facilities manager, and we were looking at the condition, and he was saying that we can see where there’s been additional damage to the pier just this winter in places where it’s already been weakened.”
The Harbor District is doing all it can to get more of the pier reopened as quickly as possible, Friedman said.
“We know everyone wants more of it open, and when you walk out there, and you encounter a fence ... it’s sort of frustrating, like, ‘Oh, I want to get out to the end,’” Friedman said. “We totally understand that, and we’re doing everything we can here to remedy this situation and get a little bit out in front of Mother Nature here, who can throw a lot at us.”
