It’s as long as San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid laid on its side. It has been there since before the Civil War, delighting millions of tourists and generations of local residents, a timeworn landmark surrounded by sea otters, pelicans and schools of fish.
And now, after a recent rough patch, the Capitola Wharf, an 855-foot-long wooden structure that juts into scenic Monterey Bay and forms the backdrop for countless beach vacation photos, is nearly ready for a new chapter.
A $10.6 million construction project to rebuild and strengthen the beloved wharf is nearly finished. Work began last September, after the structure was badly battered and torn in half by pounding waves during a “bomb cyclone” storm that pummeled the Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Mateo county coastlines in January 2023, causing flooding and power outages across the Bay Area.
Heavy construction is expected to be completed next month, and the wharf is scheduled to reopen to the public on Aug. 14.
“It has been about 17 months since the damage,” said Capitola City Manager Jamie Goldstein. “We’re looking forward to reopening it three months ahead of schedule. We are really happy with the progress.”
Photos of the wrecked wharf became the signature images of the Jan. 5, 2023, storm that made international news. In the days afterward, President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom visited Capitola and nearby Seacliff State Beach, where the waves destroyed another wooden fishing pier, built in 1930. That one hasn’t been rebuilt.
On Friday, construction workers from Cushman Contracting, a Santa Barbara firm, continued to secure huge pressure-treated Douglas fir planks on the Capitola Wharf. Nearly all of its decking, along with its railings, have been replaced.
Crews have widened the wharf from 20 feet to 36 feet wide, on the half nearest to the shore that is particularly vulnerable to big waves.
Where only three wooden pilings once propped up each section, crews increased it to six, driving 120 stronger fiberglass pilings 20 feet into the Monterey Bay sea floor, and wrapping other wooden pilings in protective composite sleeves. They repaired the 40-foot-wide chasm that waves tore into the structure.
In June and July, an ornate entrance gate, interpretive panels, trash cans and other features will be installed. There will be a new boat launch area, new restrooms, free mounted binocular stations, and signs about Monterey Bay, its wildlife and history.
But the new wharf won’t last forever.
“There’s been a long history of construction and destruction at the Capitola Wharf,” said Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth sciences at UC Santa Cruz. “It’s sort of like the Big Sur Highway.”
In 1983, big storms smashed 35 feet off the wharf’s end and destroyed a 30-foot section in the middle. Before that, a 200-foot section failed during the winter of 1913, stranding a fisherman on the end who had to be rescued.
“It’s the nature of the beast,” Griggs said. “Anything you stick in the ocean is going to be impacted sooner or later. The question is how strong do you want to rebuild it?”
The wharf, first built in 1857 by Frederick Hihn, a German immigrant who came to San Francisco during the Gold Rush in 1849, to transport redwood lumber and other goods onto ships, also was damaged in 1926, 1953, 1960, 1965 and 1982.
It was even damaged again last December, which helped increase the original $7.7 million repair cost to $10.6 million. The warming climate is generating bigger storms, Griggs said, so it will take more battering in the decades ahead.
“In each case, we decide these places are worth saving,” Griggs said. “We are going to keep the Capitola Wharf. We are going to keep the Big Sur Highway.”
Goldstein said city leaders in the quaint seaside village of 10,000 residents, about 5 miles south of Santa Cruz, know that although the new wharf is stronger, it’s not invincible.
“The wharf is part of Capitola’s history and culture,” he said. “It was here before Capitola was a city. It provides free public access to the ocean, and is an important part of our sense of place.”
“Is this a forever project? No. It has been damaged a number of times throughout history. But this generation is repairing it and handing it off to the next generation.”
One thing missing now from the old wharf: the buildings. The two storm events last year so badly damaged the two businesses on the wharf, the Wharf House restaurant and the Boat and Bait boat rental shop, that they had to be demolished. The bait shop is expected to reopen there later this summer in a modular temporary unit, and long-term plans have begun to decide whether to build another restaurant or other amenities.
Local residents and business owners say visitors ask every day when the wharf will reopen.
“My kids learned to fish out there,” said Josh Whitby, kitchen manager of Zelda’s, a restaurant on the Capitola waterfront that suffered major damage in the January storm. “It’s going to be nice to get back on it.”
Zelda’s reopened three months after the storm. Whitby was in the restaurant when a huge, 600-pound wooden beam that had broken off the wharf crashed through the restaurant’s windows.
“It was 7:45 am and I watched wave after wave smash through the window and wash across the floor,” he said. “There was anger, some sadness. I didn’t know if the whole building was going to come down.”
After $450,000 in repairs, Zelda’s is back, gleaming and good as new. The beam is now mounted like a trophy on the wall. In an amazing bout of bad luck, Whitby’s family also owns Betty’s, a restaurant on the Lahaina waterfront in Maui that burned down last August during that island’s devastating fires.
“I was thinking, ‘What the hell did we do to have to go through this twice in one year?’ It was pretty rough,” he said.
Steve Perricone, a Hollister resident who owns a vacation rental house near the foot of the Capitola Wharf with his wife, Sandi Perricone, said the number of visitors has been down slightly over the past year. But the new wharf should be a nice draw, he said, in a town that attracts tourists from the Bay Area, the United States and other countries around the world.
“We miss the weekend music and activities out there,” he said. “It’s a fun place to people-watch. It will be great to have it open again.”
