Pacifica Pier News

There is a rare opportunity in Pacifica, a bedroom community of 40,000 people on San Mateo County’s spectacular coast: deciding what to do with three precious acres overlooking the beach and adjacent to the city’s 1,140-foot-long pier.

Tonight, the City Council plans to discuss four proposals for developing the area, home to a crumbling wastewater treatment plant that will be decommissioned later this year. The ideas range from an innovative ocean center to residential and commercial projects. The one officials choose could change not only the face but the fortunes of the cash-strapped town.

“It’s a very emotional decision, a very serious decision,” said Pacifica Mayor Calvin Hinton. “Most things that happen in Pacifica seem to evolve into emotional issues, because people feel very strongly about things over here.”

The plans under consideration are:

– 34 townhouses with some retail and commercial space by Dividend Homes Inc. of Santa Clara.

– A high-tech “incubator” project, defined as a home for startup companies that share equipment, labs and administrative support, proposed by Gangi Development of Glendale.

– A hotel-conference center by Barry Swenson Builder of San Jose.

– A center dedicated to marine and coastal education and conservation, sought by a group of local citizens.

The last proposal has attracted the most excitement so far, particularly among environmentalists. It also appears to have the least chance of getting the nod from the City Council — unless its backers can find some money quick.

Their project is called the Pacifica Ocean Discovery Center, a kind of blending of the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the Exploratorium, only on a much smaller scale. The idea is to recycle most, if not all, of the existing structures at the wastewater plant into a center for marine and coastal education and conservation.

There would be public exhibits, live-animal displays, educational programs and even a connection to the restored Pacifica Pier next door and the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve eight miles south. The existing structures would be reused, while a hotel, restaurant, bookstore and farmers and fish market also are envisioned. The total cost would be $10 million.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There is no other proposal like this,” said the center’s executive director, Mitch Reid, who runs his own recycling business in Pacifica.

For Reid and his backers, who include educators, marine biologists, planners and a broad collection of environmentalists, it is a classic Catch-22 situation: they need the city’s backing to attract money for the project but they cannot seem to get the city’s attention without first having some solid financial backing, at least $1 million.

“At this point the city appears to be very shortsighted — they are going after the money first and haven’t really thought out what this project is going to do for the entire region,” Reid said.

So far, the project has received $10,000 from the Peninsula Community Foundation to hire consultants and architects to prepare plans. It also has received $3,000 from the Compton Foundation.

“We’re looking for an angel,” Reid said.

Backers of the project say its importance goes beyond the site itself. For starters, there is the connection to the Pacifica Pier. The pier carries the old 24-inch outlet pipe used to dump the treated water from the plant into the ocean. The plan is to recycle that pipe to draw saltwater into the new discovery center for live marine exhibits.

“To replicate that would cost tens of millions of dollars — if you could get Coastal Commission approval,” Reid said.

In addition, said Shari Snitovsky, the center’s education program director, the center could be a site for training people how to tread lightly at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, while at the same time insulating the reserve from hordes of sightseers.

“Instead of 300,000 people tramping through the reserve a year as they do now, about half of them could be coming to Pacifica’s new discovery center,” Snitovsky said.

Most City Council members, while expressing admiration for the project’s “vision,” agree with Reid that lack of money is a huge problem.

Hinton said Pacifica’s problem is is that it has few commercial or industrial buildings to help with badly needed tax revenue.

“We hope to one day make Pacifica a destination, particularly if we can get something like this conference center here to get people to come here to meet on business and enjoy the beautiful ocean,” he said.

Pacifica has been struggling with money problems for years. There is a grassroots attempt under way to find money for a new police station to replace the century-old, termite-infested one now barely standing, for example. Only in the past two years has Pacifica balanced its budget.

While some hotel and motel projects are in the planning stages or nearing completion, the town lacks a large shopping center; most of the town’s shoppers spend their money at Daly City malls. But as in the rest of the Bay Area, property values in Pacifica are rising. The town is changing from blue collar to professional, said city manager David Carmany.

Councilman James Vreeland said he is intrigued by the Ocean Discovery concept and is not giving up on it just yet, although he wished Pacifica had more money in reserve.

“It is a shame that this city is not in a better financial situation . . . because if it was, we would be having a totally different discussion,” Vreeland said. “I wish we could just do it. It’s tough, really tough.”

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, GRAPHIC, MAP, PHOTO: Visitors walked along a wave barrier in Pacifica where some seek to convert an old wastewater treatment plant into a marine education center. / Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle, GRAPHIC: FROM TREATMENT PLANT TO DISCOVERY CENTER / CHRONICLE GRAPHIC

LOAD-DATE: June 28, 1999

Copyright 1999 The Chronicle Publishing Co.
The San Francisco Chronicle
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JUNE 28, 1999, MONDAY, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A15

LENGTH: 936 words

HEADLINE: Awash in Possibilities;

Cash-strapped Pacifica considers building marine center, among other ideas

BYLINE: Michael McCabe, Chronicle Staff Writer

DATELINE: PACIFICA

BODY: