CAPITOLA — Three months after its highly anticipated reopening, the Capitola Wharf has passed its first major test from Mother Nature, with mostly positive results, based on town's top infrastructure official.
After nailing a couple of dozen wood panels near the middle section and confirming the integrity of the 167-year-old structure, town's wharf reopened Monday after being closed for per week. Capitola Public Works Director Jessica Kahn explained that the local landmark was closed early last week in anticipation of the large waves that tore off the top of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, causing greater than $20 million in damage within the port of Santa Cruz.
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Kahn said a pole from the Capitola Wharf was moved because one other pole ripped from the Santa Cruz Wharf toppled over and struck one in all its many cornerstones before buckling.
“We feel like this was the first real test we had after reopening the wharf,” Kahn noted, adding that her team was “really happy” with the way in which the brand new features performed during of atmospheric attack.
“It’s definitely something that’s basically happened to us since the city got the wharf,” Kahn said. “This is not unexpected; This is something we deal with more or less every year. So for us it’s not a big deal.”
As a part of the $10.6 million, the entire wharf's decking and railing were replaced Capitola Wharf Resilience Project that was accomplished this summer. The project, a decade within the making, moved into full swing in 2023 after the wharf was ripped in two by one other raging flood and days of torrential rain. The middle section of the wharf, which buckled in 2023 and is most vulnerable to heavy waves, was expanded from 20 feet to 36 feet as a part of the reconstruction work. This also included the erection of 150 latest and substitute fiber-reinforced plastic posts, that are rather more durable than traditional wood legs.
“The new posts have held up really well. There’s really no harm to them at all,” Kahn said. “We are very happy with their performance up front.”
While the wharf in Capitola survived the recent onslaught relatively unscathed, its northern counterpart, the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, didn’t fare as well. A roughly 150-foot section at the top of the pier under construction in Santa Cruz collapsed into the ocean days before the Christmas holiday and the coastal structure stays closed indefinitely.
According to Kahn, the financial burden on Capitola was also relatively low when it got here to the wharf. Just a few members of town's public works crew took to the patio within the brisk Monday morning air and nailed the disjointed boards into place before reopening the local landmark to the general public just because the sun broke through the misty cloud cover.
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