SANTA CRUZ – The Dolphin Restaurant, which has called Santa Cruz Wharf home for greater than 50 years, was demolished piece by piece Wednesday to make way for needed repairs to the damaged south end of the greater than 100-year-old picket structure.
“The reason for the demolition of the Dolphin is that numerous pilings beneath the restaurant were damaged or lost during the storms,” said Santa Cruz Development Manager Norm Daly at the positioning of the demolition. “It is impossible to replace these piles without removing the building.”
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Daly explained that the city-owned constructing the Dolphin called home was in-built the Nineteen Sixties and is “functionally obsolete.”
“It was really about time something happened there anyway,” Daly said. “This was a great opportunity to remove the building and then repair the pilings underneath.”
Massive waves inundated the coast in December 2023, causing town of Santa Cruz to briefly close the complete Santa Cruz Wharf and a number of other beaches. Although the wharf reopened later the identical day, the viewing holes and the Dolphin Restaurant at the top of the wharf were closed until further notice and remain closed attributable to damage.
With the constructing removed, completion of the repair work is now in sight and is anticipated to be accomplished in March 2025. After the constructing is demolished and the positioning is cleared, construction crews can begin replacing about 60 piles.
“The number of missing or damaged items we found was slightly higher (over 60),” Daly said. “But these piles were adjacent to intact piles and it was determined that they did not need to be replaced and the structural integrity of the wharf would continue to be complete.”
Daly, together with other members of the media, accompanied the Sentinel behind the fence at the top of the wharf on Wednesday to look at the demolition in motion, drawing attention to the damaged and bowed areas on the east and west sides of the wharf.
“This damaged area is similar to the other side,” Daly said, pointing to the east side of the wharf. “This is a temporary repair to support this section of the wharf. Once the posts are gone, there is no longer any support under the decking, so this metal I-beam bridges the distance where the posts are missing. And the iron rods coming up from the bottom actually accommodate a bend, which is a large part of the scaffolding. We eliminate the bend and prevent it from sagging any further.”
Daly explained that the wharf, which celebrates its a hundred and tenth birthday this December, has about 4,400 pilings and 180 arches keeping it afloat. He identified that every bend is numbered, with the primary bend near the doorway of the structure and the last bend (183) at the top. He mentioned that longshoremen use the assigned curved numbers to speak problems on and under the structure.
The contractor chargeable for driving the brand new piles into the seabed is Power Engineering Construction. Grace Bowman, the corporate's project engineer, explained how construction crews will drive the roughly 60- to 70-foot-long picket columns into the seabed.
“We’re going to bring a crane here and position it so it doesn’t fall through the dock,” Bowman said. “There’s a set of lines and a hammer. They pick up the stack (with the crane) and put it through the hole in the deck where it belongs. You put the hammer on, and it’s a diesel-powered impact hammer that drives it into the ground.”
Wharf Manager Britt Hoberg and Santa Cruz Wharf Recreation Coordinator Annalize Bryant took the Sentinel and other media members under the wharf on a small boat Wednesday to survey the damage. Bryant explained that she was working on the wharf last winter when the storms destroyed and damaged quite a few pilings.
“We were near the edge where the damage occurred and were discussing the plan to close the end of the wharf when we heard this loud crack,” Bryant said. “Nothing collapsed, but it was a sound I never want to hear again.”
“You hear a lot of noises out here,” Hoberg added. “But you know when you’re really feeling bad.”
When construction is complete next spring, the dolphin is probably not back, but community members can rest assured that the favored sea lion viewing holes will remain. A series of community outreach meetings over the following six to nine months will determine what will probably be populated on the south end of the wharf master plan once construction is complete, in line with economic development asset manager David McCormic, who also serves as director .
“In addition, in January, the Santa Cruz City Council approved the revised wharf master plan, which outlines the future of the wharf,” McCormic said. “There was a concept in the plan for a heritage building, but that was scrapped in favor of a public process to determine what happens next out here.”
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McCormic said town of Santa Cruz received about $6.9 million from the California Coastal Conservancy in February for projects within the Wharf Master Plan.
“We will be finalizing construction plans for a new multi-use path along the east side – the East Promenade – building new viewing areas, widening the end of the wharf and relocating parking garages to reduce traffic and create an entrance.”
McCormic mentioned other projects including two latest boat docks on the structure, one for small vessels and the opposite for larger vessels similar to the O'Neill Sea Odyssey and the Chardonnay charter boats. At the southern end of the wharf, McCormic expects to have a industrial component, similar to a restaurant, in addition to “recreational and cultural improvements.”
“There could be a visitor center,” McCormic said. “We could think about moving the surf museum. It’s a process and the community will determine what happens next.”
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