Fluor to Draw Up Plans in Pier Reconstruction

OCEANSIDE — The City Council has hired an architect and approved a design concept for reconstruction of the city’s historic wooden pier.

The design selected by the council includes a lifeguard tower, a boat-launch ramp, a bait and tackle shop, public restrooms, a snack bar and a 2,300-square-foot restaurant at the end of the pier, which has been battered by storms and lost nearly half its length to the ocean in recent years.

Irvine-based Fluor Engineers Inc. has been hired under a $112,310 contract to draw up plans for the $3.5-million project, which will rebuild the pier to its original length of more than 1,600 feet--the longest of its kind on the West Coast.

Construction is expected to begin in April and last about a year, city officials said.